Pittsburgh is being touted as a “must see place” and one of the “best places in the world to visit!” Therefore we believe that visitors to Pittsburgh and the David Lawrence Convention Center should immediately be experientially engaged by the proposed hotel complex.

 

Raising the Bar

 

Our proposal raises the hotel above Penn Avenue. This allows us to overcome the challenge of two small footprints by bridging 10th Street, mirroring the DLCC. It also connects our roof to the slit in the DLCC roof. The hotel’s mixed-use program such as boutique shops, iconic restaurants and ballrooms, will be contained within a two-story hotel volume, hovering over a new urban plaza. By stretching along the entire Penn Avenue span, this will visually and perceptually unify the site and complete the streetface. Elevating the building five stories produces a covered, urban plaza at the terminus of the Cultural District, connected to the Allegheny River via the Convention Center Riverfront Park. A field of illuminated multicolored, multi-angular steel columns will produce an intensely memorable and welcoming space.

It will form a multisensory experience and spark visitors’ imaginations and emotions. This south-facing plaza, the largest covered plaza in Pittsburgh, will be constantly bustling, enlivened with shopping kiosks, street art, seating and bike rental facilities. It will be a marquee for conventions and a favorite spot for lunch breaks. Being covered, it can be a dramatic all-weather performance venue for the Cultrual District, and serve as a counterpart to Market Square.