Ask around town and the future of Station Square is, at best, in flux.
In the past eight months, three of the riverfront complex’s mainstay restaurants have shut down after operating since the turn of the century. Buca di Beppo closed in June after 25 years, shuttering the Italian chain’s last location in the region. Joe’s Crab Shack followed in September, abruptly closing with no official announcement. And Hard Rock Cafe Pittsburgh, which, for decades, hosted live music ranging from tribute bands to local acts, closed on Feb. 13 after 23 years. The restaurant’s closure came after Brookfield Properties, the New York-based firm that owns Station Square, reportedly decided not to renew its lease.
To compound the uncertainty, Brookfield Properties also faces a foreclosure lawsuit, filed in November, demanding more than $140 million in unpaid loans. One news report described the situation as “dismal.” District 2 City Councilor Theresa Kail-Smith, who represents the area that includes Station Square, called the possible foreclosure “a terrible blow to Pittsburgh.”
Hard Rock Cafe kitchen manager Matt Byrne, a 15-year veteran who recently created the restaurant’s award-winning Pittsburgh Burger, says management “did this to themselves for whatever is going to happen down here.”
Pittsburgh City Paper visited Hard Rock in August, where Byrne and the staff, several of whom had been working at the Station Square restaurant since it opened in 2002, were relieved to have weathered pandemic shutdowns.
Byrne describes his reaction to its permanent closure as “not bitter, just disappointed in how this area was mismanaged.” But it’s not all doom and gloom. He says Hard Rock staff in the restaurant’s final days remained “all very grateful for the time spent here and the friends and family we made while having the privilege of working in the area and at the cafe. So that’s the silver lining for us.”
Station Square has long held a special place for Pittsburghers. Ensconced in historic buildings, the soon-to-be 50-year-old complex has consistently billed itself as a “premier dining and entertainment destination,” with scenic views of the Monongahela River and incline. Once a social hotspot, Station Square has been the site of weddings, birthdays, proms, and vibrant nightlife with warehouse-style clubs, as well as serving as a potent symbol for Pittsburgh’s postindustrial renaissance.
Poised again for transition, Station Square rekindles the questions of what redevelopment in Pittsburgh can be, especially as Downtown, just across the Smithfield Street Bridge, undergoes its own revitalization.
Karamagi Rujumba, director of education, development, and advocacy at the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, explains that the Station Square we know today began with the death of the passenger rail. The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad was anchored by a grand seven-story station — whose “P&LE RR” sign can still be spotted from Downtown — at the base of the Smithfield Street Bridge. Though the railroad was once known as the “Little Giant” for moving heavy tonnage of steel, coal, and iron ore, by the 1970s, it had declined and operated only one commuter line.
The Landmarks Foundation, founded in the 1960s, saw the area could be slated for demolition, as the city had already done in Pittsburgh’s Hill District.
“Our organization was really formed in antipathy of what urban renewal was,” Rujumba tells City Paper, noting that swaths of the North Side and South Side had also been marked for demolition. “Our idea was that you don’t have to demolish neighborhoods to reinvest in them, that you can actually use the historic buildings and historic neighborhoods to create vitality by restoring them.”
PHLF acquired the 52-acre riverfront site in 1975, establishing the Landmarks Building at the railroad’s headquarters.
Rujumba emphasizes their goal was not only to “turn around what was a railroad into commercial, retail, and office space,” but to integrate “artifacts from Pittsburgh’s industrial past.” Station Square’s Bessemer Court was designed to link the site’s riverwalk to its heritage, incorporating a 10-ton Bessemer converter built in 1930.
In 1978, PHLF facilitated the creation of the Grand Concourse Restaurant, a significant addition to Pittsburgh’s fine dining scene. The restaurant also modeled historic preservation, repurposing the former train station’s Victorian and Edwardian architecture, marble columns, and stained-glass cathedral ceilings.
After 19 years and having achieved its goals, PHLF sold Station Square to developer Forest City Enterprises in 1994. At the peak of Landmarks’ ownership, Rujumba says, Station Square operated 150 businesses, created 3,000 jobs, and generated more than $4 million in tax revenue.
“We like to say it’s the shining example of what real urban renewal can be,” he says.
One challenge Station Square faces today, says Chris Briem, a regional economist at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social and Urban Research, is that it might be a victim of its own success.
“There was an era where it probably didn’t have that much competition,” Briem reflects.
When Station Square was created, “you probably could have stood [and] looked up the river and seen the J&L [steel] plant. There was an orange glow on the river. Things were pretty bad. Here was something new,” Briem says.
While bars dotted the South Side in the 1970s, the neighborhood catered to workers and wasn’t yet a nightlife destination. The Strip District, then home to a tri-state produce terminal, had fallen into disrepair after Penn Central Railroad filed for bankruptcy in 1970, and had yet to undergo its own transformation.
“When the ‘80s came, there’s all this great effort to move beyond steel,” Briem tells CP. “We didn’t really do very well, or at least not quickly. So Station Square was kind of an exception to that, a place that people wanted to be.”
Briem cites another wave of urban development that emphasized redeveloping Pittsburgh’s rivers (culminating, in part, with a visit by then Prince Charles to the first Remaking Cities Conference in 1988).
“You go back 40 or 50 years, we were not using any of these riverfronts,” Briem says.
Given all this, Station Square “justified proof of concept” to build out other riverfront retail and entertainment destinations (or so-called “lifestyle centers”) like Southside Works or the North Shore, which now draw its customers.
As an urban or pedestrian mall, Station Square also battled with other shopping complexes like the now-defunct Allegheny Center Mall, Briem says. Though Station Square survived while most malls (urban and suburban) did not, it’s been subject to the same retail apocalypse, hastened by the pandemic.
Briem also views Station Square’s trajectory as tied to larger shifts in Downtown Pittsburgh, which is still grappling with the rise of remote work and repurposing office space for residential conversion.
“No one really planned on COVID happening or this shift happening so fast. And change can be absorbed if it happens slowly enough,” Briem says. “But I think as leases turn over Downtown, you’ll see more and more vacancy and more and more property devaluations, which will beget more and more turnover.”
Practically speaking, “it’s not actually that easy to get to,” Briem says of going to Station Square from Downtown. “It’s an old joke, because Pittsburghers don’t cross bridges … For Americans, it’s a complex path.”
If you want to hear from an optimist, Thomas Jayson can easily reel off a detailed plan for Station Square’s future. The former club magnate and owner of storied venues including Chauncy’s, Matrix, and Rock Jungle (to name a few) still runs a sports bar in Station Square, Homerun Harry’s.
“I see it. I’ve been here. I lived it,” Jayson tells CP. “Been here from day one.”
In Jayson’s view, it’s misguided to try to attract foot traffic from Downtown or entice guests to cross a bridge. Though the Smithfield Street Bridge is well-traveled by pedestrians, Station Square should still be thought of as its own destination.
“Because it’s a great location, it’s a safe location,” Jayson says. “You’ve got two inclines that attract a lot of tourism. You’ve got the Gateway [Clipper] fleet down here, which brings in a lot of people. You’ve got [Highmark] stadium; you’ve got everything.”
Jayson asserts that the recent restaurant closures weren’t due to a lack of business, but broader issues with the chains’ business models, such that successful locations “went down with the ship.” Even so, as he previously cautioned, novelty is a tricky thing, and he considers Hard Rock’s concept outdated.
Conversely, Station Square’s existing restaurants, the Grand Concourse (whose developer Jayson knew), the Melting Pot, and Texas de Brazil are “all doing fantastic,” Jayson says. “That proves it’s a good location.”
The biggest challenge currently is “nothing’s going to happen until a new owner’s in place,” Jayson says, which he believes will be resolved in a matter of months. (The prediction may prove true as Boston-based firm WS Development was reportedly working to buy Station Square last month.)
After the complex changes hands, Jayson says, it needs new tenants, and “the effort should be to bring in more restaurants and some entertainment.”
The Freight House, once home to the original Funny Bone comedy club and 50 shops, sits empty, save for a vacant medical training center subleased by UPMC. Commerce Corner, where Chauncy’s was, also has occupancy problems. Jayson believes it’s still “a great space” that, with upgrades, could attract a national restaurant chain. A new owner could also extend Station Square’s sidewalk to the Sheraton Pittsburgh Hotel (which is owned separately) and attract more guests.
Jayson says he’s working on “three or four or five concepts” that could slot in next door to his bar, including a lounge with live entertainment.
“They need some cocktail lounges,” he emphasizes. “Not nightclubs like the old days … those days are gone. But I’d open up a restaurant lounge, a cool place to hang out-type place.”
Contrary to Station Square’s rumored decline, both Rujumba and Jayson believe there’s room for it to grow, even to build more residential space in addition to the Glasshouse Apartments, developed in 2017. Jayson can envision a hotel near the incline with a “magnificent view.”
“A very upscale, five-star boutique hotel would do spectacular there,” he says.
“So I think it’s going to come back. There’s no doubt in my mind, it’s not going anywhere,” Jayson says. “I think there is definitely a future here at Station Square, and I think that’ll soon be realized.”
This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2025.
