“Services and resources for residents have also evolved, including The Corner collaborative workspace and The Digital Foundry (designed by R3A) training center.”
By Tom Yerace
Originally published Dec. 8, 2024, on triblive.com.
For decades, New Kensington’s elected leaders, business owners and residents have striven to improve the city’s downtown in both image and function.
Those efforts now appear to be bearing fruit. The Pennsylvania chapter of the American Planning Association singled out New Kensington’s Fifth Avenue corridor for a Great Transformation award from communities across the state.
The award is part of the organization’s annual Great Places award program, which began in 2014 and since has recognized 59 locations in 32 Pennsylvania counties.
For 2024, the Great Places categories were Public Spaces and Transformations.
“The renovation of Fifth Avenue can be viewed, truly, as a great transformation,” said Josh Spano, deputy director of planning for Westmoreland County, who presented the award to Mayor Tom Guzzo and council at the December council meeting.
“I don’t think there are many people who might have thought we’d be standing here tonight, being the recipient of this award,” Guzzo said.
In announcing the award, the planning association pointed out that “New Kensington grew with the rise of the industrial market and Fifth Avenue was the heart of the city’s downtown.
“However, the decline of industry and business in the 1970s and 1980s led to Fifth Avenue becoming a street with many vacant and blighted buildings, high crime rates, aging infrastructure and a loss of hope.”
The organization said the city’s stakeholders began to turn the corner toward achieving their goal with the creation of the “Corridor of Innovation,” a strategic plan for downtown developed to identify solutions and guide redevelopment.
Olde Towne Overhaul, headed by Mike Malcanas, operator of Voodoo Brewing in the city, has 38 retail units filled with 27 businesses. Malcanas began buying buildings in the city in late 2017, renovating their first-floor storefronts and working with small-business owners to afford moving into them.
“Olde Towne Overhaul is very proud to be able to contribute to the city’s redevelopment efforts and play a small part in helping to obtain this award,” operations manager Michelle Thom said. “Small businesses play an essential role in ‘Main Street redevelopment.’ And through our programs, we have enabled countless small businesses to make the leap from a home-based business or simply a dream, to owning their own brick-and-mortar location and contributing to the Fifth Avenue revitalization that is being celebrated with this award.”
Spano cited a collective effort as the impetus for the emerging rebirth of the downtown.
“I think it’s just the redevelopment effort by the city officials and the business people,” he said. “Just making it a desirable corridor for families and local residents.”
Explaining it further, the planning association’s award announcement said, “With a focus on mobility planning, zoning reform, smart city initiatives and business development, the plan put Fifth Avenue on the road to recovery.
“Vacant and blighted buildings have since been transformed into incubator spaces for unique small businesses, such as bakeries, restaurants, breweries, art shops and retail. Services and resources for residents have also evolved, including The Corner collaborative workspace and The Digital Foundry training center.
“Public parks and patches of open space are interwoven along the street to provide green space and sites for community gatherings and events that draw a large crowd. Fifth Avenue is once again thriving, and reinvestment is spreading to nearby neighborhoods.”
Councilman Dante Cicconi echoed that sentiment in expressing his thanks for the award on behalf of the city.
“It is really the efforts of the community, the pioneers who moved into New Kensington,” Cicconi said. “You see it with the number of people who come out month after month, event after event.”
Guzzo also discussed the faith of those people who took a chance on New Kensington as they pursued their dreams of owning their own business and boosting a community in the process.
“People like Kevin and Mary Bode, who recognized a need and a way to support and lift those in need and also make it a welcome spot for the entire city with the Knead Café,” he said.
The mayor also thanked the city’s residents for supporting those efforts by patronizing the downtown businesses.
“Our people are our greatest asset,” Guzzo said.“This truly is a community effort, and I am very proud to say that our New Kensington downtown Fifth Avenue is a Great Place in Pennsylvania — and we’re just getting started.”
In addition to New Kensington, a Great Transformation award also went to The Navy Yard in Philadelphia, while Great Public Spaces awards were presented to Bryn Coed Preserve in Chester County and Schwenksville Borough Hall & Community Complex in Montgomery County.