The
New Hazlett Theater, which is housed in the historic Carnegie Library at Allegheny Center on the North Side, recently received a grant to create plans for the 120-year-old building's future architecture and preservation needs.
The $10,000 Design Fund grant from the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh, will go toward creating a master document. The New Hazlett Theater will match this amount. The theater applied for the grant in August, and received it in September. The next step is to develop an RFP, says the theater's executive director Sara Radelet.
The building, which also currently houses a senior citizen center, previously housed the Carnegie Library (which reopened this summer in its new brand-new home at 1230 Federal St.) and Pittsburgh Public Theater (which occupied the space from the 1970s until 1999, when it relocated Downtown).
The New Hazlett Theater was founded as nonprofit in 2004 with the mission to "cultivate the arts and provide a venue for world class and neighborhood cultural events." In 2004, the building underwent more than $2 million worth of renovations, designed by EDGE studio, with Turner Construction serving as contractor. The New Hazlett is available for corporate functions and independently organized events, and has six anchor tenants, including Prime Stage Theater, Attack Theatre, Dance Alloy Theater, the Warhol Museum and Pittsburgh Musical Theater.
Andrea Lavin with the Community Design Center says the Design Fund grant will help the New Hazlett "take stock of the building," and figure out how the space can be used to expand theater and community needs, and also help the facility become a model for green, sustainable technologies in an historic building setting. Radelet, the New Hazlett's executive director, says she'd love to see the second floor of the unused space split into offices, and have the first floor include a public component that meshes with the arts and family focus of the surrounding amenities such as the Children's Museum.
The New Hazlett building is owned by the City, and the New Hazlett Theater holds a long-term lease.
Writer: Caralyn Green
Sources: Sara Radelet, executive director, New Hazlett Theater; Andrea Lavin, Community Design Center of Pittsburgh
Photograph courtesy of the New Hazlett Theater