The Gateway Center is a complex of office, residential, and hotel buildings covering in

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. It lies between Commonwealth Place and

Stanwix Street Stanwix Street is a street nearly half a mile long near Point State Park, The Point in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Downtown Pittsburgh. Running south from the Allegheny River to the Monongahela River, it is the western terminus of Forbes Av ...

at the western edge of the central business district, immediately to the east of

Point State Park Point State Park (locally known as The Point) is a Pennsylvania state park on in Downtown Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA, at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, forming the Ohio River. Built on land acqu ...

. Construction of the Gateway Center was one of the earliest

urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...

projects in the United States and part of Pittsburgh's

Renaissance I The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

programs which reshaped large sections of the city. The project was developed by the Equitable Life Assurance Society and built between 1950 and 1969. In May 2013, the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

designated a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

named the " Pittsburgh Renaissance Historic District" which encompasses both the Gateway Center and neighboring Point State Park. All of the Gateway Center buildings were designated as

contributing properties In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

in the district except for one, the former State Office Building, which was considered to have lost its architectural integrity due to a 1980s remodeling.

History

Plans were developed during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

to redevelop the dense and "blighted" forks of the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

into both

and a "Gateway" of offices. It was announced as fully financed on September 21, 1949, when the Equitable Life Assurance Society agreed to underwrite the project after securing lease agreements from Westinghouse,

Mellon Financial Mellon Financial Corporation was an investment firm which was once one of the world's largest money management firms. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it was in the business of institutional and high-net-worth individual asset management, incl ...

and other major corporations. On May 8, 1950, work began to clear the Gateway Center site for the new development. Although mainly a run down

warehouse district This is a list of notable warehouse districts. A warehouse district or warehouse row is an area found in many urban setting known for being the current or former location of numerous warehouses. Logistically, warehouses are often located in indust ...

the Center did require the demolition of the 1904 Beaux Arts 11 floor

Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal __NOTOC__ The Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal was a railroad station located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Constructed in 1903 and opened on April 13, 1904, the 11 floor Beaux-Arts domed 197 foot tall terminal was designed by Th ...

Most of the existing streets and buildings were wiped away, giving the developers a clean slate to re-imagine the area as a "towers in a park" concept based on the urban planning ideas of

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

. The first three office buildings, One, Two, and Three Gateway Center, were completed in 1952.

Eggers & Higgins Eggers & Higgins was a New York architectural firm partnered by Otto Reinhold Eggers (August 4, 1882 – April 23, 1964) and Daniel Paul Higgins (September 12, 1886 – December 26, 1953). The architects were responsible for the construction phas ...

, architects on the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, were the architects for the first three buildings. The Wyndham Grand Hotel was added in 1959 and Four Gateway Center was completed in 1960. The final building in the Gateway Center, the Westinghouse Building, was completed in 1969. In 2004, One, Two, Three, and Four Gateway Center were purchased by

Hertz Investment Group Hertz Investment Group is a real estate investment company. The company was founded by Judah Hertz in 1977. In 2003, the company acquired a 26-story office tower and retail complex from Simon Property Group for $36 million. The property was sold ...

, a

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, based real estate investment company, for US$55 million.

Buildings

The original Gateway Center development included a total of ten buildings: eight office buildings, one residential building, and one hotel. One of the office buildings, the State Office Building, was later converted to residential use. As of 2021, Gateway Center consists of four buildings.npochepko The 625 Stanwix Towers building is within the Gateway Center boundaries but was not an official part of the development. One other building on the site, the Pittsburgh Press Building, predates the Gateway Center project.

Major tenants

KDKA-TV KDKA-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside Jeannette-licensed CW affil ...

studios in One Gateway Center (CBS Broadcast Center Pittsburgh). *Gateway Health Plan in Four Gateway Center. *Industrial Appraisal Company, corporate headquarters in Two Gateway Center

References

External links

*
Hertz purchase of Gateway Center in Pittsburgh closes
{{Pittsburgh Skyscraper office buildings in Pittsburgh

History

Buildings

Major tenants

See also

References

External links