Consultants Tour City Gathering Information

Three days of meetings include sessions with students, business owners

By Jason Togyer
The Tube City Almanac
November 07, 2025
Posted in: Announcements

Ed Shoucair, president and co-founder of The Collaborative, prepares to lead a group of about 30 residents on a walking tour Thursday afternoon in Downtown McKeesport. (Tube City Almanac photo)

A group of internationally known community planners has begun its third day of meeting with city residents and business owners as they begin the process of developing a strategy for reinventing McKeesport’s Downtown.

On Wednesday, the consultants — known as The Collaborative — met with local elected officials and a group of students at McKeesport Area High School.

They were impressed with the students’ “great and relevant ideas” and will be meeting with them on a regular basis as they develop a plan, said Ed Shoucair, president and co-founder of The Collaborative.

The process is expected to take about nine months, said Matthew Craig, executive director of the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh, which obtained the grant to hire The Collaborative on behalf of McKeesport.

“I have talked to many funders about McKeesport, and many of them see a way forward for McKeesport, but they want to see a plan, and then you have to work the plan,” Craig said Thursday night during a public meeting at the Palisades, Downtown.

About 50 people attended the evening event, including Council Members Jim Barry Jr., Jill Lape and Amber Webb and City Administrator Tom Maglicco.

Craig and others see the Palisades and adjoining marina as lynchpins of a redevelopment strategy to attract amenities to the city’s Fifth Avenue business district, which has struggled since the 1980s and now has more vacant lots than open businesses.

Earlier on Thursday, The Collaborative conducted a listening session with community leaders — including local pastors and McKeesport Area School Superintendent Donald MacFann — and business owners, then conducted a walking tour of Downtown McKeesport for about 30 residents.

McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko said he was excited by The Collaborative’s vision and the group’s track record in other struggling cities.

The city has worked hard to tear down vacant and blighted buildings in the Downtown area, including along Fifth Avenue and Lysle Boulevard, he said. The next step, Cherepko said, is to attract construction.

COVID lockdowns in 2020 and supply chain disruptions in 2021 killed some of the momentum the city thought it was building, the mayor said.

“We were hoping to hit the ground running, but unfortunately we’ve been jogging in place since 2020,” Cherepko said. “I think this is a team of individuals that is going to come back with a concrete plan, and obviously when you have a concrete plan in place, you’re going to be much more successful.”

Craig said the Young Preservationists were originally brought to McKeesport about 10 years ago to find a possible re-use for the Penn-McKee Hotel. The historic landmark closed in the mid-1980s and has been decaying ever since.

An engineer’s report has concluded that the existing building, constructed in 1927, is too far gone to save, but the Young Preservationists have suggested that a new multi-use structure — possibly including a hotel — be built on the site that would provide accommodations for people using the marina and the Great Allegheny Passage, and for overnight visitors to UPMC McKeesport, Kane Regional Center and other institutions.

“What struck me in my meetings with the mayor and his team was their passion,” Craig said. “When I saw this community through their eyes I was in.”

Dom Anselmo of Duquesne-based KU Resources and Ed Shoucair, president and co-founder of The Collaborative, lead one of three discussion groups Thursday night at the Palisades. (Tube City Almanac photo)

McKeesport’s Downtown business district was once the hub of the Mon Valley, but went into decline following the development of suburban shopping malls in the 1960s and 1970s. The loss of U.S. Steel’s National Plant and G.C. Murphy Co.’s headquarters in the 1980s left much of the business district empty and vacant.

A few small businesses — mostly resale shops, convenience stores and beauty salons — have opened in recent years, but vacant and boarded-up buildings predominate.

Shoucair said Thursday night the group sees making Downtown attractive to younger people as a key element of restoring activity to Fifth Avenue, Walnut Street, Market Street and Shaw Avenue.

Most of the young adults and teen-agers to whom they’ve spoken told the Collaborative’s planners that they socialize at The Waterfront in Homestead.

“It’s crazy that they have to go all the way over there,” he said. 

Shoucair said it will be important to understand that any proposed changes will happen in phases.

“It can’t happen all at once,” he said. 

On Thursday night, Shoucair and other planners, including the Collaborative’s chief executive officer, Joe Brevard, asked groups of residents what assets they thought existed in McKeesport, what types of amenities would encourage them to come Downtown, and what they hoped the look and feel of Downtown would be some day.

The work is being funded through a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from a fund aimed at redeveloping so-called brownfield sites, Craig said. 

Craig encouraged residents and other stakeholders to be patient with the process, and also to look for future opportunities to participate. The nine-month timetable is actually fairly accelerated, he said, considering that many such proposals take 18 to 24 months.

The crowds at Thursday’s two public events were a positive sign, Craig said.

“These are some of the best people in the entire world at this kind of work,” he said. “The fact that they would come in here and focus their time and their talent speaks well of McKeesport. How can we make this better? How can we meet what everyone’s expectations are? By contributing.”

Originally published November 07, 2025.

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