Parade Will Showcase Downtown Possibilities

City, Better Block team up Saturday to encourage economic, cultural investment

By Jason Togyer
The Tube City Almanac
November 20, 2024
Posted in: McKeesport and Region News

Azael Alvarez, project manager for the Better Block Foundation, helps to paint the Cox’s Corner parking lot on Monday. (Tube City Almanac photo)

City officials, Penn State Greater Allegheny and the Texas-based Better Block Foundation will use this weekend’s Salute to Santa parade to encourage economic and cultural investment in the Downtown business district.

The parade — still among the largest Christmas parades in Western Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh — gets underway along Fifth Avenue between Market and Sinclair streets beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday (Nov. 23). Tube City Almanac will provide live-streamed video coverage, weather-permitting.

Better Block, with support from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, is transforming the Cox’s Corner lot — a parking area on the site of the former Cox’s Department Store at Fifth and Walnut streets — into a colorful temporary performance area.

A pop-up holiday market is being created for this Saturday only across the street in the People’s Building and the vacant D&K Stores and CVS Pharmacy. Hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

Workers from Better Block and Curtis Reaves of See-Clear being the process of painting Cox’s Corner. (Tube City Almanac photo)

According to Better Block, the pop-up market will feature a stage, mini-golf, free s’mores and hot dogs.

Although the market will only be open for one day, Better Block is hoping that the activities planned this weekend will help spur conversations about the future of the Downtown McKeesport area, said Marissa Lopez, project manager for Better Block.

Workers from Better Block will be surveying participants to ask them what activities and businesses they would like to see along the Fifth Avenue corridor.

“Our long-term hope is to start the conversation, inspire people, and let them imagine what could be here,” Lopez said. There will be 20 vendors and artists located inside the storefronts — along with Santa Claus — as well as food trucks outside.

When McKeesport was a city of 60,000 people, the Downtown shopping district was once one of the busiest in the state of Pennsylvania, with multiple department stores, movie theaters and dozens of speciality shops. But the street has been mostly vacant since the early 1990s.

Only a Sherwin-Williams paint store, a Family Dollar, a few convenience stores and other shops endure. A Domino’s Pizza recently opened at the corner of Fifth and Market streets.

Lopez said Better Block has helped host similar pop-up events in Hazelwood and New Kensington in the hopes of attracting interest and investment.

Better Block is racing the weather and the clock to finish by Friday, Lopez said. Volunteers from Penn State Greater Allegheny and other organizations are helping, she said.

One of those groups is See-Clear, an arts non-profit, along with a newer group called Mon Valley Arts.

Curtis Reaves, founder of See-Clear, said he would like to see artists, musicians and other creative people making their home in Downtown McKeesport as the first step toward attracting additional businesses and activities.

Reaves, of Duquesne, and his wife, Tracey, are renovating a building on Shaw Avenue for use as a hub for artists.

What Better Block is doing is called “creative placemaking,” he said, or using the arts to make positive changes in a community.

According to the National Endowment for the Arts, creative placemaking includes using art to rejuvenate open spaces, bring attention to community assets and issues, and connect people with economic opportunities.

“Art is a billion-dollar industry,” Reaves said. “I’m hopeful that the city can see what we’re trying to do here and continue it.”

(Tube City Almanac photo)

Reaves and others from Mon Valley Arts helped to temporarily repaint the front of several storefronts across from Cox’s Corner. The group recently collaborated on an event with the Garden Club of McKeesport and is looking for additional partnerships, Reaves said.

He would like to see the Cox’s Corner lot active on a regular basis for community events, including arts festivals, food truck rallies and concerts.

“It could be used for a whole plethora of things, with non-profits and other organizations having events,” Reaves said. “And once it's activated, I hope it will stay activated.”

Originally published November 20, 2024.

In other news:
"Investigators Probing…" || "MAHS Band Booster Cha…"