Many Pittsburghers are familiar with the concept of “Things That Aren’t There Anymore” — our vibrant nostalgia-industrial complex (PBS plus Rick Sebak, etc.) that yearns endlessly for the missing places and things of yesteryear. If you’ve ever had to memorize where an Isaly’s used to be in order to give directions, you know how this works.
Imagine that, except in reverse: “Things That Aren’t Coming Here, Ever.” Someday, we can all give out directions like, “Oh, you know, just hang a left at the GIANT EMPTY VOID where the Wholey’s Fish Market used to be.”
In honor of these projects that got our hopes up — or filled us with ire — but never delivered (at least yet), here’s a completely subjective list of the most significant dead developments in Pittsburgh from the last several years.
To make it seem slightly scientific, each is given a score from 1 to 10. 1 is DEAD-DEAD, like super dead — never going to happen. 10 is UNDEAD, like this project could surprise us and rise from the grave. It’s been known to happen around here.
Batman goes green
Sometimes, even the best Batman (not up for debate) takes the train to Flop Town. In 2021, Michael Keaton pitched a collaboration with Nexii Building Solutions, promising to manufacture a lower-carbon, sustainable concrete alternative called Nexiite here in Pittsburgh. Green building, 300 manufacturing jobs, decarbonizing the concrete business — sounds great! Sign us up!
A fishy farm
Zoomed out
In a similar fashion, DoorDash dined and dashed after grabbing some good press here in 2021, never delivering the actual office, or its promised 50 jobs.
Deadscore: 2
Wholey empty
The smiling Wholey fish always gazed down benevolently on our hapless foibles without judgment, and we miss it terribly. But no, nobody really needed a monstrous, windowless bomb shelter with three-foot-thick concrete walls, originally built to keep seafood cold. Especially one that was going to be vacant forever, barring some sort of Fallout/The Last of Us-type scenario.Deadscore: 3
Jazzed up for nothing
The James Street Tavern site in Deutschtown is a repeat offender when it comes to getting our hopes up. Noise complaints from nebby neighbors closed this legendary, 125-year-old jazz club back in 2017, and it has sat dormant ever since. (Because jazz hasn’t really drawn a rowdy and disorderly crowd since, I don’t know, the 1930s, this never made any sense.)
Food porn?
The Garden Theater on the North Side was a porn theater for a long time. There was a decades-long court fight to get rid of it. In recent years, the Garden has been gutted and rebuilt entirely, its white terra-cotta facade now gleaming proudly in the starlight. It’s ready for a nice restaurant or brewpub. Except, well … did we mention that it was a porn theater? It’s not a cursed murder house, but, well, it’s not hard to see why some people might find it a bit unappetizing to eat there.
Supposedly, construction on the project could start this fall. But by the time this is finished, the rest of the world will have probably moved on to aerial gondolas/trams, or dozens of tiny drones that whisk us away to our destination.
Deadscore: 6
Deadscore: 7