Subscribe to Pittwire Today
Get the most interesting and important stories from the University of Pittsburgh.Nearly 500 people gathered in the Hill District Aug. 12 to honor the neighborhood’s vibrant history, celebrate the first stage of the revitalization of the historic New Granada Theater and usher in an exciting future at Pitt’s new Community Engagement Center (CEC).
Guests mingled and enjoyed a meal together before leaders from the University and the Hill Community Development Corporation (CDC), as well as Mayor Corey O’Connor, gave their remarks.
“This achievement is more than a building,” Chancellor Joan Gabel said. “It advances the goals the Hill set for itself in its own master plan, and it honors and houses a cultural and creative legacy. It honors and houses the opportunity to start new businesses, and it helps to guide and grow the community’s own vision and belongs to the people that shaped it.”
Once a pillar of the Hill District — hosting live music, dances and more — the New Granada Theater closed in the 1970s and later fell into disrepair. The building was bought by the Hill CDC in 1990. In 2016, a task force of regional leaders formed to revive the historic building and reinstate it as a community hub. Soon after, the University of Pittsburgh announced its Neighborhood Commitment in the Hill District and joined the team.
Operated through the University’s Office of Engagement and Community Affairs (ECA), led by Associate Vice Chancellor Jamilah Ducar, Pitt’s Neighborhood Commitments are long-term pledges of support that foster mutually beneficial relationships between Pitt and the local community, based on feedback and guidance from community leaders and members. One method of support is through Community Engagement Centers.
“Our Neighborhood Commitments model, launched in 2018 with our first Community Engagement Center in Homewood, is built on a simple idea: university-community partnerships thrive when they're rooted in the neighborhood,” said Keith Caldwell, executive director of place-based initiatives within ECA.
To ensure community involvement, the University worked closely with the Hill CDC, led by President and CEO Marimba Milliones.
A Hill District native and the child of Pitt professors (Jake Milliones, Margaret Milliones and Barbara Sizemore), Milliones said it was on the University’s Pittsburgh campus that she first saw the power of university partnerships with local communities, especially when the community is centered.
“Imagination is what turned a room full of believers into a building full of programming, like the S.T.E.A.M. task force and what we see now in the Pitt CEC,” Milliones said at the opening event, referencing the Hill CDC’s 2016 goal that the New Granada offer S.T.E.A.M. education — subject matter relating to science, technology, engineering, arts and math — for all ages.
To meet community goals and through partnership with Pitt Digital, the School of Computing and Information, the Swanson School of Engineering and other Pitt units, the Hill District CEC’s programming will have an emphasis on S.T.E.A.M. education, including classes on digital literacy and coding.
The center will also honor the New Granada’s history as a cultural hub, offering programming by Pitt’s Jazz Studies department and its Center for African American Poetry and Poetics.
Pitt’s Hill District CEC initially opened in the Blakey Program Center in May 2020 and offered a variety of community- and student-led programming. While the plan was always to make a home in the New Granada, the path wasn’t straightforward.
“Anyone who knows this project knows there were plenty of moments when someone might have suggested scaling back the vision,” said Lina Dostilio, Pitt’s vice chancellor for external relations. “However, Marimba and the Hill CDC board do not scale back vision. And just as importantly, they have the persistence and follow-through to make that vision real, no matter what it takes.”
As the anchor tenant of the CDC-owned building, Pitt signed a long-term lease, reaffirming a commitment that provides the timespan necessary for community-university partnerships to flourish and grow.
“Our Community Engagement Center here is not to bring the University to the Hill,” said Chancellor Gabel, “but rather be a place where Pitt faculty and students can work and learn with the community, where community members can access resources and services they need, and where community organizations can partner with Pitt programs to strengthen their efforts. This engagement is intentional. It’s long-term. And it is forged in civic strength and impact.”
Photography by Aimee Obidzinski