Arts Landing is the name of Downtown’s new public green space. The name was announced Thursday by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, which owns the four-acre site located at Eighth Street and Fort Duquesne Boulevard.
More detailed plans for the space — part of the planned $600 million redevelopment of Downtown — were announced at a press event in the Trust’s Greer Cabaret Theater.
The new $31 million civic space sits between Penn Avenue and Fort Duquesne, occupying the entire block between Eighth and Ninth streets and the Fort Duquesne end of the block between Seventh and Eighth streets. The site is currently occupied by the Backyard, a Trust-operated site that includes recreational amenities and hosts temporary stages and other arts event.
The new, permanent space will feature a band shell overlooking a one-acre lawn plus playgrounds, public art, three pickleball courts, flex recreational space and native plantings including about 100 new trees, Trust president and CEO Kendra Whitlock Ingram told about 200 guests.
The plan requires the demolition of the Goodyear auto service center. A pair of historic six-story buildings on the corner of Ninth and Penn that are owned by the Trust will remain. Their first floors will be converted into a visitor center with public restrooms, Ingram said.
The Arts Landing design must first be reviewed by the Pittsburgh City Planning Commission before work begins.
Groundbreaking is expected to begin in April, Ingram said, with the space open to the public in time for the NFL draft here in May 2026. Arts Landing will also be the new permanent home in the city’s Cultural District for the Trust-organized Three Rivers Arts Festival, which has lacked one since 2021, its final year in Point State Park.
“For the Cultural Trust, having a place for true outdoor arts and culture in the District, that’s something that’s really been missing for us.”
The band shell would back up on Fort Duquesne Boulevard and open across the lawn toward Penn.
Speakers at the event included Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, and David Holmberg, president and CEO of Highmark Health and chair of the Trust board.
“This is reimagining and building an entirely new destination that will delight and benefit our community,” Holmberg said.
The designer of Arts Landing is Field Operations, the renowned, New York-based landscape architecture firm behind such landmarks as Manhattan’s Highline. Details of the plan were presented by Field Operations partner Lisa Switkin, who said a key goal was strengthening the connection between Downtown and the Allegheny River.
Switkin said the space’s elevation will rise about 5 feet above Penn, affording visitors a partial view of the river and a better view of the band shell.
Eighth Street will be closed to vehicular traffic and converted into a “Garden Walk,” with native and native-inspired plantings.
Because the Trust will retain ownership of the site, it will not be a public park. But Ingram said that while hours of usage will be limited, as in most public parks, Arts Landing will be accessible to the public for a wide range of activities.
“As much as we want this to be an arts and culture hub, and a place for outdoor activation for the arts, it’s not necessarily a concert venue, right?” she said. “The band shell is meant to kind of recede into the background. Literally anyone can stand on it and sing, or sit in the afternoon, or throw a Frisbee during the day, throw a blanket and just hang out. This is what we want the space to be. We want people to extend their time in Downtown.”
