Originally published: Pittsburgh Business Times, 9/20/2019

The Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania announced Friday that it had donated a three-story building in Duquesne to the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh.

The building was constructed in the late 1800s to early 1900s and served as an office building for Carnegie Steel, which later became part of U.S. Steel. It has 14,512 square feet of space and is located across the road from RDIC’s City Center of Duquesne park. The tax assessment value for the property, which includes a small adjacent parking lot, totals more than $200,000. The Urban League is currently the building’s only tenant.

“The Urban League’s presence in this building has helped Duquesne families deal with the challenges they faced after its industrial facilities closed down,” RIDC President Donald Smith said in a prepared statement. “In weighing the potential economic impact of selling or continuing to rent this building, as opposed to donating it to the Urban League, it became clear that enabling this great organization to have a secure future of serving this community was the preferable option.”

The RIDC acquired the building in 1988 and it became an incubator for early-stage companies. Previous tenants included the Allegheny Recovery Corp., Hygienetics Environmental and Pittsburgh Habitat for Humanity.

“We are most grateful to the RIDC for donating this facility which currently houses the Urban League’s more than twenty-year-old Family Support Center,” Urban League President & CEO Esther L. Bush said in a statement. “We look forward to maximizing the potential of this generous gift by planning and attracting even more quality programs and services for Duquesne and the surrounding community.”