Most anticipated developments of 2025
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The Downtown Pittsburgh skyline. Photo: Brandon Sloter/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Pittsburgh may see a bustling year for development, from plans for a sprawling North Side promenade to Downtown revitalization efforts.
Why it matters: These projects will have weighty economic implications for the city and region.
- They'll also influence traffic, parking and, in some cases, the deep-rooted character of a community.
🎡 The Esplanade
The big picture: Pittsburgh's City Planning Commission greenlit a developer's master plan for this high-profile Ohio River development in the city's Chateau neighborhood last year.
Zoom in: The $740 million venture aims to build a housing, shopping and entertainment hub, anchored by a nearly 200-foot-tall Ferris wheel, on a 15-acre brownfield on the city's North Shore, near the Rivers Casino.
- Site plans include an amphitheater with riverfront views, condominiums and a recreation trail.
- Future phases could include an aquarium, movie theater or similar attraction.
- It would be paid for with a mix of private funding and state grants, and Pittsburgh's Urban Redevelopment Authority recently OK'd the Transit Revitalization Investment District, or TRID, to help facilitate the project.
- It's part of a larger concept to connect Chateau and North Shore attractions with Manchester.
What's next: Each of the project's buildings will go through similar planning hearings.
- Developer Piatt Companies aims to break ground this year, with an estimated first-phase completion in 2028.
✈️ New terminal at PIT
The big picture: A $1.57 billion modernization project at Pittsburgh International Airport is set for a grand opening later this year.
Zoom in: The existing terminal splits landside and airside operations into two buildings connected by an underground shuttle system.
- A new 811,000-square-foot landside terminal, where passengers arrive, will directly connect to the airside terminal, where passengers access their boarding gates, with a pedestrian walkway.
- Automated trams that shuttle passengers from landside to airside will be removed.
- There will be more parking and additional security lanes.
- There will also be new food and retail options, including Shake Shack and Mineo's Pizza.
- Airport officials are still deciding whether the existing landside terminal will be repurposed or demolished.
🏥 UPMC Presbyterian Hospital
The big picture: UPMC's $1.5 billion, 17-story Presbyterian hospital tower in Oakland is set for a 2027 opening, which means project-related traffic reroutes and reduced parking will persist this year.
Zoom in: The hospital will center on cardiology, neurology and transplant care, according to UPMC.
- The first four floors will serve as a hub for restaurants, meeting space and more.
Zoom out: The 636-bed hospital expansion is the largest continuous health care construction project in the state, according to UPMC.
🏙 Downtown revamp
The big picture: Gov. Josh Shapiro last year lauded a 10-year revitalization strategy to bring more housing and bolster public spaces Downtown.
Zoom in: Pennsylvania delivered $62 million to kick-start a planned $600 million investment by the city, county, nonprofits and private businesses to convert seven buildings into mixed housing and re-energize The Golden Triangle.
- Plans would create or preserve roughly 1,000 residential units, nearly a third affordable to residents with low to moderate incomes.
- $30 million would fund a major renovation of Market Square and Liberty Avenue medians to improve visitor experience, expand dining spaces and better connect Point State Park to Market Square to spur private investment Downtown.
- The initial phase of the plan is set to be completed by the end of 2028.
🏗️ 72 Steel in Aliquippa
The big picture: New York-based company 72 Steel is working to revive Aliquippa steel production north of the city in Beaver County.
Zoom in: The buzzy groundbreaking ceremony held last year drew intrigue throughout the region for its pageantry, including inflatables, Champagne and confetti, and its widespread support from business leaders and politicians despite it being the company's first manufacturing site.
- The $218 million facility will stand on land once occupied by J&L Steel's tin mill with an electric arc furnace, a steelmaking technology with lower carbon intensity than traditional methods — to produce reinforcement steel for a variety of industries.
- 72 Steel, founded in 2016, purchased 44 acres of the historic Aliquippa Works site for nearly $4.4 million.
- Owners slated the completion date for 2025, but construction has yet to begin at the site.