Pittsburgh’s Planning Commission on Tuesday approved a Heinz History Center plan to demolish four Strip District buildings to make way for an expansion of the museum.
The group of two- and three-story buildings, all currently vacant, sits on the 1200 block of Penn Avenue. The History Center purchased them starting in 2019 with an expansion in mind.
The commission voted 8-0 to approve the demolition.
The four buildings, one of which formerly houses the long-running restaurant Sushi Kim, occupied 15,000 square feet of lot. Heinz History Center now owns the entire half-block between Penn and Mulberry Way, including a few vacant lots and the Deitrich Building, where the museum keeps its library and archives.
President and CEO Andy Masich said the Center, which drew nearly 350,000 visitors last year, can no longer fully accommodate its programming in its current space.
“We would like to meet the needs of our public with expanded exhibition space and classrooms for kids. With the coming 250th anniversary of the United States next year, I think it’s altogether fitting and proper that we have the best history museum in America,” he said, referencing the fact that readers of USA Today have voted it the best history center in the country two years running.
The Center’s presentation to the commission was made by Chip Desmone of Pittsburgh-based Desmone Architects, who said the buildings to be demolished were all built between the 1890s and the 1950s. He said all but the most recently built are “in pretty bad shape.”
While Masich said the expansion would connect to both the museum’s main building and the Dietrich Building, the Center has yet to announce detailed plans for the expansion. Desmone said those plans could be made public as early as June.
