“If you had people visiting for the weekend and you wanted to show off your neighborhood, what things would you do, where would you take them?” asks Josette Fitzgibbons, Neighborhood Business District Manager for the Urban Redevelopment Authority. “That’s the idea behind Next 3 Days.”
The URA and partners are launching the 2016 Next 3 Days (N3D) program, a weekend of festivities in a chosen city neighborhood. This year’s neighborhoods are to be determined, so the URA wants to hear from community groups who want N3D in their corner of the city.
The ultimate goal of N3D, a partnership between the URA, Mayor Bill Peduto’s office and NEXTpittsburgh, is to highlight some of Pittsburgh’s under-the-radar neighborhoods, from affordable housing and business districts to revitalization efforts.
The inaugural N3D event in Troy Hill last October was a success, says Fitzgibbons. The N3D partners, with the help of Revive Marketing Group, worked with Troy Hill Citizens Inc. to line up a weekend full of events such as a street festival that included entertainment, food from local eateries such as Scratch, tours of the neighborhood including bike tours (despite the neighborhood’s formidable hills), pedicabs and a house tour of homes for sale. N3D kicked off with a party at Wigle Whiskey’s Barrelhouse in bordering Spring Hill.
Now they’ll use the Troy Hill event — see it here in a photo slide show — as a template for the upcoming events, Fitzgibbons says. She stressed that whatever neighborhoods are chosen, the event will be tailored to reflect the community’s unique assets.
In order to be considered as a site for one of the Next 3 Days events, neighborhoods will need to meet a few criteria. Each will have to commit volunteers and a point person to help coordinate the event, have two local restaurants commit to be food vendors and at least two retail establishments on board. Also, the maximum median home price in the neighborhood should be less than $90,000.
This year’s events will bookend the summer, with one in May or June, and the other likely in September.
Community groups who want to submit their neighborhood for consideration have until Jan. 8 to express interest by sending an email to n3dpgh@gmail.com
Once the neighborhoods are selected, the URA will begin meeting with organizers in the communities to get things rolling.
