David Bear has a sky-high vision for Pittsburgh tourism.

Several years ago, the Pittsburgh writer surveyed the tallest building in town and had an epiphany. He  realized that the one-acre roof on top of downtown’s 841-foot-tall U.S. Steel Tower was the highest flat space on any building on earth. Why not make it into the coolest park in the world?

Thus was born the idea for High Point Park. With the sponsorship of the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, Bear’s idea has grown into an expansive vision: to transform the empty space into a destination for both tourists and locals that showcases the city’s signature green sensibility.

The building, now headquarters to UPMC and other commercial tenants, is owned by Winthrop Management/Area Capital Partners, an REIT based in New York. The owners have not yet approved such use, and the project has yet to be funded.

“You can’t put a price tag on it until you figure out what you want to do,” says Bear. To help determine that, an interdisciplinary CMU project invited student teams to create designs for the park, as well as a business case for its key elements: financial sustainability, benefit to society, and green. The results galvanized local enthusiasm for the project, which has been supported by the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and VisitPittsburgh, the city’s tourism agency.

Bear believes that a park atop the 64-story building would probably require an additional elevator, perhaps on the exterior of the building. He points out that the building’s proximity to Mellon Arena and Consol Energy Center, the new home of the Pittsburgh Penguins, could generate plenty of visitors willing to pay an admission fee to the park.  A similar tall building in Chicago, the Wills Tower, has generated significant interest and revenues from its new Skydeck. But unlike that indoor space, High Point Park would let visitors “wander around and have a picnic,” Bear says.

Bear hopes to continue his investigation with further help from CMU this fall. “There’s nothing like this anywhere in the world,” says the travel editor emeritus of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “It’s unique. It’s visionary in so many ways.”

Source: David Bear, High Point Park Investigation
Writer: Chris O’Toole