Pittsburgh is not a city that objects to a little industrialism.

In fact, there may be no city built on industrialism quite the way Pittsburgh was. It wasn’t just a city where things were made. It was a city that made it possible for things to be made in other cities, what with the production of the nation’s steel.

Pittsburgh is built of steel and glass, powered by coal and fed on Heinz ketchup, and proud of it. And while the industries may have changed, morphing from metal to medicine over the years, the look has remained, if not exactly the same, then at last familiar. When UPMC took over as the dominant tenant in the U.S. Steel Tower, it stamped its name on the skyline. It didn’t change it.

When someone new comes to town, they should realize that little piece of the Pittsburgh personality. No matter how much the city grows and changes, the pride in where it all started is always there. It’s in the Steelers name. It’s all along the riverfronts. And it’s in the Strip District.

So it’s unsurprising that Mayor Bill Peduto got his hackles raised when New York-based JMC Holdings announced plans for the environmentally friendly building that would replace what everyone knew as the Wholey’s Building — the former Federal Cold Storage Warehouse at Penn Avenue and 15th Street.

Wait a minute. Isn’t Peduto all about the environment? What gives? Was there no bike parking?

No, the 13-floor office building and seven floors of parking do feature plenty of space for bikes and electric cars. But the shiny, modern cube is too starkly new in its industrial feel and not a complement to that older industrial character and scale of the Strip.

It is nice to know that something so iconically Pittsburgh keeping its Pittsburgh-ness is important enough to have the mayor take a stand — although he did say he would not oppose the $245 million project.

And he shouldn’t. That’s a lot of money and a lot of opportunity. This baby shouldn’t be chucked out with the bathwater. Other businesses that have come in — like Facebook — have kept the feeling while infusing the area with new economic blood.

In 2016, JMC acquired The Pennsylvanian apartments Downtown, located in the historically significant former train station. But if JMC is going to replace a building that is as much a part of the Strip as a Primanti’s sandwich, it needs the guidance on what it is like to be part of the fabric of not just a city, but a neighborhood that so defines itself by its history.

The buildings may come and go. The character remains.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)