Garden Theater marquee lighting signals start of long-stalled North Side development

Drivers who routinely pass the Garden Theater on North Avenue probably didn’t think they’d ever see anything like what happened on Wednesday night.

After years of darkness, the Garden Theater marquee lit up the North Side block the theater has inhabited since 1915. A larger rooftop sign also lit up the night sky.

The lighting of the old signs, with North Side residents and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto in attendance, kicked off a groundbreaking ceremony for construction of a project 20 years in the making.

Downtown-based Trek Development is beginning construction of a five-story apartment building at North Avenue and Federal Street, a project that was scheduled to begin in early 2020 but was delayed by the pandemic.

Plans call for retail outlets on the ground level as well as amenities like a fitness center, garden and rooftop deck. Completion of the project is set for late 2022.

“We are so glad to finally be here to break ground on this development,” Peduto said. “This is one of those projects that took a long time to get started but we brought on Trek Development and were able to create strategic partnerships with the neighborhood in order to get here today.”

The Garden Theater was a popular destination for movies through the 1970s. Then the venue became a hub for X-rated films. The location also drew drug dealers and prostitutes. In the 1990s unhappy residents mounted a legal effort to force the owner to shut down. The theater finally closed in 2007.

“It may have taken a little bit of extra time, but Trek is here with a successful project that was done through the filter of the community’s input,” Peduto said. “It will blend with other developments we’re seeing and will see that will make North Avenue become something we haven’t seen since the 1960s.”

In 2015, Trek proposed a larger development, which would have incorporated the facades of three older buildings that were standing on the site. That project was scuttled by court challenges over zoning variances. The three buildings were torn down and Trek returned with the present proposal.

A 2011 plan was headed by Philadelphia developer Wayne Zukin. It included a restaurant in the Garden Theater site that was to be called ARDE, along with other developments, but it failed to be realized.

The Garden Theater site is beside City of Asylum’s Alphabet City, which opened in 2016 inside a renovated Masonic Hall. The space contains a bookstore, restaurant and performance space for music and literary events.

With the adjacent City of Asylum space and the nearby New Hazlett Theater, the developers did not consider it viable to return the Garden Theater building to use as a cultural venue.