Oct 7, 2015 By Harry Funk 3 min read

Several years ago, Barbara Lowenstein volunteered to help maintain the plant beds along Washington Road in Mt. Lebanon’s Uptown business district.

“Watching those beds deteriorate has been frustrating,” she said last week during a public meeting addressing a strategic plan for the district.

Lowenstein and other residents provided input at morning and evening sessions on Oct. 6 as part of Environmental Planning & Design LLC’s process of developing the plan. The Downtown Pittsburgh firm also worked on the comprehensive plan adopted by Mt. Lebanon in 2013.

“We need to understand and expect what the public wants to see in its central business district,” Carolyn Yagle, EPD landscape architect and certified planner, explained.

Issues that were discussed during the morning meeting included parking, business viability, overall appearance and cleanliness, or lack thereof.

“What I see in the beds is pathetic: the gum, the paper, the cigarette butts,” Lowenstein, who is among the all-volunteer corps taking care of the plantings, said. “It would be nice have some kind of committee that just focuses on those beds.”

Eric Milliron, Mt. Lebanon’s commercial districts manager, agreed that the state of the plant beds and of Uptown in general often leaves something to be desired.

“Littering is clearly a behavioral issue of our species,” he said. “We try to rely on property/business owners to tidy up.”

The condition of Washington Road sidewalks is another area with room for improvement. As Milliron explained, repairs and replacements at various times with assorted materials have resulted in a “crazy quilt” of concrete.

The municipality’s capital budget calls for improvements, similar to a sidewalk program that recently was completed in the Beverly Road business district.

“We’ll see how that goes through the commissioners’ budget discussions,” Milliron said.

He said he also would like to see improvements to Parse Way, which connects the Port Authority “T” station with Washington Road.

“That should be our welcome mat,” he said about the street, which instead is “Dumpster-strewn” and uninviting for visitors. “They try to get off it as fast as possible.”

Despite the recent closing of the Walnut Grill restaurant, Milliron expressed optimism about Uptown’s commercial viability.

“If you look at our local, home-bred businesses, they’re doing well,” he said. “Our vacancy rate still is amazingly low.”

With business comes a need for parking, which usually is at a premium, even though Mt. Lebanon is eminently equipped for pedestrians.

“This walkability thing is overplayed and not really true,” said resident Bill Lewis, a former member of the municipality’s now-defunct parking authority.

Milliron suggested better signage to help make motorists aware of the South public parking garage, off Washington Road next to the municipal building. He also discussed an app for smartphones, Parker By Streetline, that provides information about available spaces along the street.

The Uptown Business District, Milliron explained, encompasses an area along Washington roughly from Rollier’s Hardware to the Bill Few Associates office. He differentiated that from the central business district, which extends farther in each direction.

Yagle said that a first draft of the strategic plan will be ready for the municipal Economic Development Council for review by the end of the month, and the plan is targeted to go to Mt. Lebanon commissioners for approval in early 2016.