Penn Hills Passport aims to be 1-stop guide to local events, business and more

Penn Hills Councilman Alan Waldron, with support from the local community development corporation, has taken another crack at building a one-stop app for residents to find news, events and businesses in the community.

Dubbed Penn Hills Passport, the free app aggregates information from the web and packages it into various feeds and directories. It launched Sept. 9 and has since garnered nearly 200 downloads from the Apple App Store and Google Play.

“Everyone is like, ‘We need business, we need restaurants, we need this,’ ” Waldron said, explaining his motivation for making the app. “I think a lot of these people just don’t know how much we have.”

Waldron first recognized the need for a Penn Hills-specific app about six years ago, when he built an app called This Is Penn Hills. It was “not great from a technology perspective,” he admitted, and was quickly shut down.

A Facebook page meant to promote the app has persisted under the control of his wife, Melissa, and has accumulated nearly 4,000 followers.

His second attempt at a community-oriented app was sort of an accident.

In 2022, the Penn Hills Community Development Corporation received $20,000 from the municipality to help restaurants in town get their logos on blue food signs along the parkway, according to Waldron, who was the organization’s vice president at the time.

Their efforts to court Dunkin’, Subway and other fast-food joints went nowhere.

Waldron, meanwhile, had gained experience coding several apps as the owner of his own software development agency.

“After months and months of trying to give this money away, we started thinking, ‘What else can we do with this money?’ ” Waldron said. “That’s when I thought: ‘We could probably use that money to build this app.’ ”

About $12,000 went toward developing the app, and the remaining $8,000 will fund four years of marketing and maintenance. Though Waldron did the lion’s share of the work, ultimate control lies with the Penn Hills Community Development Corporation.

Mayor Pauline Calabrese noted the app, while not endorsed by the municipality, could be helpful for residents.

“I’m in favor of anything that can keep our residents connected and informed,” Calabrese said.

While the app includes the municipality’s logo, which could imply endorsement, it is not owned or operated by the municipality, she said.

“We, as a council, never published an RFP (request for proposal) for such an app, the municipality did not develop it, and it has never come before Penn Hills Council for a vote to fund it,” she said. “My understanding is that this app is a private product, which happens to have been developed by one of our council members.”

The app has five tabs: news, calendar, shop local, community and real estate.

Users can toggle which of 12 organizations appear on their news and calendar feeds. This includes the Penn Hills Democratic Committee. Waldron, a Democrat, said he would be open to his Republican counterparts being featured, too.

The shop local tab directs users to various restaurants, retailers and more, while the community section serves a similar purpose for schools, government and service organizations.

Finally, there’s a real estate tab, which shows photos, prices and addresses for local properties on the market.

For Penn Hills Library Director Tina Zins, whose organization is built into Penn Hills Passport, the app could be a big help.

“I think we’re always looking for a way to reach more people,” she said. “We try to do what we can online, but if this has a further reach, we greatly appreciate that. So hopefully it’ll help spread the word about what we’re doing here at the library.”

To download the app, visit pennhillspassport.com. Content suggestions can be sent to hello@pennhillspassport.com.