Up Close with PSR
Rev. James Simms

The Rev. James Simms, a 62-year-old former president of Allegheny County Council, is also Chairman of the Board of Advisors of Pittsburgh First, the coalition of businesses and community leaders advocating a $1 billion-plus development project in the Lower Hill District and Uptown areas of the city that includes construction of a new arena as part of its application for a gaming license.

The Rev. Simms is pastor of the St. Paul Baptist Church in Pittsburgh. He is also the former director of the City of Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, former director of the Public Housing Authority and former executive assistant for Pittsburgh Mayors Richard Caliguiri and Sophie Masloff.

Given that background and the fact he resides in the Hill District, he is quite qualified to talk about the significance of the redevelopment of the Lower Hill. He did just that recently with PSR's Bob Grove.

Q: What will the redevelopment of the Lower Hill mean to this community?
A: Probably the most exciting part of what we're doing at Pittsburgh First is pulling together this alliance of Isle of Capri as a gaming entity, the Penguins franchise looking to stay in Pittsburgh by coming out of this deal with a new arena, and Nationwide Investors, the development arm of Nationwide Insurance. What makes this deal so exciting is that we have an opportunity to build a new arena but the opportunity also to demolish the current arena and reclaim that 28 acres on which the arena now sits.

As you know, and so many folks in Pittsburgh who know the history of our region understand, 50 years ago the city demolished what was a vibrant neighborhood in the Lower Hill whose history was connected to Soho and connected to a lot of other places, and as most urban growth has happened, a number of ethnic groups called that area home at some point in history. A lot of Jewish friends lived in that community. A lot of Irish friends lived in that community. So the community had been home to a lot of the mix of the fabric of Pittsburgh. That entire community was devastated when the Civic Arena was built in the 1950s and early 1960s. Since that time there has been a disconnect between Downtown and the Lower Hill, even being able to push that development eastward. One of the largest job centers in Pittsburgh is now in Oakland, and every effort is to connect Oakland and Downtown. Certainly via the Hill is one viable way of doing that.

We see this as being really the piece of the development that distinguishes the Pittsburgh First proposal from the others. One of the criteria for selecting the gaming licensee is an analysis of community impact. We've always taken the position that anybody can build a stand-alone casino. And anybody who can build it will build a nice facility. But at the end of the day, given where the city is with its fiscal problems, its Act 47 oversight board issues regarding its finances, to turn this 28 acres into a revenue-generating development with businesses, a viable place, really makes good sense for the city. We see this as being a major part of what we're bringing forward, not only to generate the revenue for property-tax reduction, which will come out of the slot revenues, but also to build a new arena that will be deeded to the city.

Q: Is the social impact of the construction of the Civic Arena a forgotten story?
A: Because the general population of our city is older, it's a constant theme in barber shops and beauty shops and jitney stations where the older citizens tend to gather. It has been regenerated when we start talking to community groups, talk about wanting to come back and restore the street grids and name two of the streets, Logan and Fulton streets. . . people's eyes just light up: 'I remember.' I've been to places where folks have said, 'My grandmother lived there, and I remember as a kid sitting on the stoop in that neighborhood.' So below the surface there's a real sense of history, as in most neighborhoods we have some tie to from our youth. You can remember the old neighborhood, no matter where it was. So folks have a real sense of that as a community. They start pointing out sites, like the Roosevelt Hotel used to be there, they remember the clubs, marching bands in the street. . . they remember all that stuff almost like it was yesterday, so the memories just start flowing.

And everybody certainly understands, too, that the community will not be restored to what it used to be. But at the same time, being able to reclaim the land and reconnect Crawford Street and reconnect to Downtown is important, too, because we're finally seeing some very practical, pragmatic action items happening on Fifth and Forbes, we're starting to see that energy. And being able to build that, connect that, to the 28 acres here not only benefits Downtown but the rest of the community.

Q: Has the community at large embraced this?
A: I think the community pretty much has a healthy skepticism. They've heard so many promises before, and the promise coming from our group is just that. We have not produced yet. But we have a very viable plan and we intend to do it. But I anticipated that folks would give me a ho-hum, we've heard it before (reaction), and that's to be expected. For 50 years they've not seen an awful lot. It took a long time for the community to get to the state it's in generally in the Lower Hill, with so much vacant land, unemployment so high. To turn that around requires more than just me simply saying it but to actually beginning to involve the community in the process and to begin talking about it. The more we talk about it, the more we engage people, the more we paint a vision that it's not simply a Hill District project, but a citywide project that connects Downtown, the Hill and Oakland, the more it brings them into the process.

Q: What has been your plan for engaging the community in that discussion?
A: We have a Pittsburgh First team, and we take our presentation to block clubs, civic organizations, any time two or three people will have us, we'll show up. I've been to every senior citizen building in the Hill, talking to people about this. That's been really important, because some of the smaller groups really are the ones that can feel it, and we depend on word of mouth, people talking about it. When they see the big glitz in the papers and the news, they say, 'Those folks were at my block club meeting.' And the connect starts to happen. The onus is on us to get out and explain this. People gloss over all the numbers being thrown at them, so you really have to talk bread and butter issues that people understand: jobs. I tell people all the time, 'If we're successful, folks in the Hill who want to work can walk to work. Gravity will take you downhill to work. They kind of like that. Just point yourself in that direction and you'll end up at the job. A lot of the problems they've had are that some of the job centers out in Cranberry corridor, out in the Robinson corridor, people have a difficult time getting there. But they would have this concentration of an arena, a casino here.

The Isle of Capri has a very strong employment history. It's an industry that's really driven by personality. If you come to work in this industry and you've got a pleasing personality. . . they're not that concerned with how far you've been in school. If you can just come and win people over on the strength of your personality, you can go places. So it's a real great opportunity, and people connect to that idea. Plus the site is served by 17 Port Authority bus routes, so wherever you come from around the region, the site has been tested. We don't have to create new routes to get there. It's well served by Port Authority, it's well served by the existing road structure with the Parkways East and West coming into Grant Street, the Veterans Bridge, Bigelow Boulevard and Forbes going back east. . . our traffic planners looked at the site and their comment was, 'This is a traffic planner's dream. We don't get sites like this.' Unlike the Station Square proposal, where they try to make you believe there's not going to be a traffic problem with 4,000 more cars on Carson Street.

Q: With your experience on County Council, you're familiar with the politics of the region and the state. Has any part of this process surprised you so far?
A: I think the intensity of it, at times, has surprised me. I really did not see any reason why the Governor would weigh in on this. It seemed to me that because of the Gaming Commission's role the Governor could say to all three entities, 'Look, guys, I'm neutral. I'm not going to get involved in this.' But to come in and be as deeply involved as he is, with Plan B and asking the Penguins to contribute money and asking the other casino applicants to contribute money, without having an in-depth proposal the Penguins can really talk about, it sort of smacks of political shenanigans in a way. That has sort of surprised me a bit.

I believe the Gaming Commission is not going to be swayed by that. I believe the people on the Gaming Commission, because they are people of sterling reputation, that they will look at the facts and weigh them. This is the most heavily-regulated process. . . the authorities from the FBI, they're all over this to make sure this thing is taken by the numbers. If I'm on the Gaming Commission, no matter who my friends are politically, I would tell them straight up, 'I'm not going to jail for anybody. So I'm just going to do my job and do my job correctly, and at the end of the day I'm going to decide what I think is best for the city of Pittsburgh.' And I've always contended that if you put the three plans on the table, and everybody keeps their hands on top of the table, I believe our plan is by far the best one. So if you weigh them in terms of that, I'm OK. If we don't make it because of that, we've given it our best shot. We started off conceptually knowing that we could not have just a good plan; we had to have the best one. We became very inclusive of development, very inclusive of keeping a well-loved team here.

The last game the Penguins played was just wonderful. It just shows you the depth of love and appreciation that the fans of this town have for their team. I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and we always had. . . it was a minor-league city with minor-league teams. I know what it means to have to pick a team, whether it was the Washington Redskins or a Baltimore team, but it's not your team. I think people who probably have not experienced that, because we've had it so often here, you can't appreciate what it's like not to have a major-league team. That really says a lot about your city; you become almost a second-class city. To keep the team here, whether you're a hockey fan or not, it means so much to be able to do that. The support of people has really been great in terms of recognizing that.

Q: How important is it to have as a partner Nationwide Realty, which has already proved it can do this kind of development, having done it in Columbus around the Blue Jackets' arena?
A: That's real important, because you want people on the team who are veterans at this, who understand what it means to get this done. Nationwide has demonstrated their ability to take very difficult sites. . . the site in Columbus, for example, was an old Civil War penitentiary site, a brownfield site. People had sort of given up on it. They were able to go in, remediate the land, build a Nationwide Arena, build a beautiful arena district around it, so they've demonstrated that. What they've done at The Waterfront here; they did a lot of work at The Waterfront, they've worked at SouthSide Works. They are experts at this kind of urban project.

We're giving them a much better site than they had in Columbus to work with. One of the things they impressed upon us when we were in Columbus is that you have to carefully plan what you do. You can't take a site and say, 'Let's see what happens.' You have to carefully plan what your mix is going to be, carefully plan how you stage it, watch the market so you don't have a white elephant just sitting there with vacant stuff you can't move. I think we have the right partner. They have a body of work all across the country that shows they're good at what they do. We feel very good that they'll bring their first team in here with our community planning process that, again, involves the community in helping to shape what that 28 acres is going to look like. We've already worked with the URA and some design people because you really don't want to have buildings so high there that the folks who have invested in Crawford Square would have their site lines disturbed.

Get To Know…
Proposed plans for a new arena in Pittsburgh

Isle of Capri
" Arena will be located near the current site of Mellon Arena
" $290 million of privately funded money for the construction of a new multi-purpose arena
" Revitalization of the Lower Hill District and Uptown Neighborhoods
" Reconnection of downtown and the Lower Hill District

Harrah's/Forest City Enterprises
" 400,000-square-foot location at Station Square
" $512 million Harrah's Station Square Casino with 3,000 slots
" Ground-floor retail, sidewalk dining and cafe eateries
" 200 additional rooms at Sheraton Station Square Hotel
" 1,250 residential condominium units

PITG Gaming
" $375 million to $425 million Majestic Star Casino
" Location: North Side, between the Carnegie Science Center and the West End Bridge
" 1,000-plus seat riverfront amphitheater and 300 room hotel
" Commitment of $7.5 million per year for 30 years under Plan B proposal
" Pledge to create new residential, commercial, retail and recreational development in the Hill District

"Plan B" proposed by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell
" $8.5 million up-front contribution by the Penguins and $2.9 million annual lease payments
" $7.5 million voluntary annual contribution from the winner of the slots license
" $7 million per year from the new Gaming Economic Development and Tourism fund
" $1.1 million per year from arena naming and advertising rights

Various thoughts on a new arena…
Republican candidate for Governor Lynn Swann
Isle of Capri gets the city of Pittsburgh a brand new arena-a $280 million facility-that does not cost taxpayers a single cent. It's not only the best deal. It's a no-brainer going forward.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell
Pittsburgh needs a credible plan for a new arena that does not require taxpayers to foot the bill and will work regardless of what decision is made on the slots casino license.

Forest City/Harrah's investor Franco Harris
These two companies (Forest City and Harrah's) bring the expertise and strengths that Pittsburgh needs to make gaming successful. This partnership will help Pittsburgh and our communities continue to grow and improve.

Head of PITG Gaming Don Barden
This development program will create one of the largest economic expansions western Pennsylvania has ever seen: thousands of new construction jobs, thousands of new casino, hotel and related jobs, as well as new jobs in Pittsburgh's retail sector.