Developers of Pittsburgh's Esplanade face challenges building on brownfield (2025)

With an industrial history like Pittsburgh's, it can be a challenge to build for the future. The riverfront site of the proposed Esplanade on the North Sideis a brownfield — a piece of land contaminated by former industry.

Pittsburgh is no stranger to brownfield development; places like Hazelwood Green and the Southside Works are both former brownfields. And developing a brownfield on a river, like the one in Chateau that will become the Esplanade, means crews have to take special care. But one expert says it's better to get the contamination out than leave it there.

Developing former sites of steel mills and other industrial engines of the 20th century into modern housing, shopping and recreation centers means mitigating all kinds of pollutants and making sure to protect the health of Pittsburgh's rivers, which we weren't always good caretakers for.

That's the challenge facing the developers of the Esplanade, the $600 million mixed-use project with hundreds of housing units, a marina and a Ferris wheel. It'll be built on a 15-acre swath of brownfield along the banks of the Ohio River that currently houses parking lots.

Digging in with heavy construction equipment could disturb some of the contaminants at the site, but leaving it alone is not great either.

"If you have any contamination underground, if you leave it there, you are more likely to have long-term effects on the river, because there is underground water that flows into it, and so, for long-term health of the ecosystem, you are better off removing any contamination that you have," said Dr. Marisa Chrysochoou, a dean and professor at the College of Engineering at the University of Missouri. Her expertise includes brownfield redevelopment.

In plans submitted by the Piatt Companies to the city's department of planning, they proposed infiltration basins and a retention basin with a permanent pool to mitigate runoff into the sewer system and rivers.

"The idea is that when you have large amounts of water being generated in a short period of time, the problem is that those will kind of like overflow. And so a retention basin is kind of like a temporary bathtub that will store the water so that it can drain more slowly afterwards," Chrysochoou said.

The Chateau neighborhood where the Esplanade will be built is the least populated neighborhood in Pittsburgh, with fewer than 40 residents as of the 2020 census. Chrysochoou says developers need to keep the community's health in mind when they are tackling a brownfield.

"How do they control dust? How they control the stormwater, how they control any of the, you know, like, during the remediation process, the excavation, the installation of new things, and so on, that's when any exposure could happen. And there are ways to mitigate that," Chrysochoou said.

But ultimately, she says whatever a city or company can do to remediate a brownfield and remove the industrial contaminants will benefit the community and the environment.

"Mitigation and remediation is definitely best for the long-term environmental health of the neighborhood. I mean, there's no — I had no question in my mind about that," Chrysochoou said.

The Esplanade development is expected to break ground this spring, with phase one, and that Ferris wheel, completed between 2027 and 2028.

Tory Wegerski contributed to this report.

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