One big sale sped East Ohio Street’s transformation to restaurant row

The East Ohio Street commercial strip is undergoing a transformation, with empty storefronts on the 400 block east of Cedar Avenue slated for restaurants and businesses.

The owner of Bistro to Go Cafe is planning a BYOB farm-to-table restaurant, while a wine bar, a gelato store and a Filipino restaurant are set to open over the next two years.

Empty storefronts remain, but they’re surrounded by a constant swirl of construction.

“Two years ago, I wasn’t excited about the prospects here. Businesses would open and close. Now I’m really hopeful,” said Nikki Heckman, the owner of Bistro to Go, which opened on East Ohio in East Allegheny in 2007. “The fire has finally lit. We’ve been trying to ignite the fire on East Ohio. Others have tried and it could never catch.”

That fire is drawing new crowds, but leaving at least one North Side leader wondering whether her neighbors are well served.

“We’re getting ready to change East Ohio Street into Walnut Street,” warned Angela Williams, president of the Charles Street Area Council and former president of the board of the Northside Leadership Conference. “And how many North Siders can shop on Walnut Street? Working-class North Siders are unable to shop there.”

Several restaurants that have opened in the last few years offer dinner entrees that range from $28 to $44. The recent transformation into restaurant row, as some people call it now, can be traced back to the opening of Siempre Algo in 2018. Still, as recently as 2019, the area was remembered as “a habitat for panhandlers, drug abusers and prostitutes,” according to TribLive .

The pace of change picked up in 2022, when the nonprofit Northside Leadership Conference sold a series of buildings to private company, East Ohio Capital LLC, at severely discounted prices. The conference focuses on economic revitalization of 18 neighborhoods, and its board is composed of representatives of community organizations.

Williams resigned from the conference board presidency in 2019 due to concerns about the investment strategy.

But the financier behind the recent transformation sees the changes as a good thing.

“East Ohio Street has a history of being a magnet for heavy drug use and prostitution and various vices that are not appreciated by the neighborhood,” said Matt Hicks, an investor based out of the Bahamas who is the owner of East Ohio Capital LLC. “We didn’t want to see these properties going to people who didn’t care or would be slumlords. We’re trying to help restore East Ohio.”

East Ohio block transformed by deal

Heckman agreed. “This street was a mess when we opened.”

Now, Bistro to Go provides a mix of catering and prepared dishes. Sweet Time General Store offers an eclectic mix of goods and serves as a post office. Makeshift Bikes repairs bicycles and teaches their maintenance. Siempre Algo is joined by Subba Asian Restaurant and EYV Restaurant.

“East Ohio Street is a gateway to the North Side and you want a diversity of restaurants there. More is better than none,” said Mark Masterson, executive director of the Neighborhood Community Development Fund, a lender that started on the North Side but has expanded to serve all of Allegheny County.

Several buildings in the 400 block are slated for partial demolition, and City Councilor Bobby Wilson is collecting state and city funds to make the street more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly.

The 500 and 600 blocks of East Ohio are a mix of new and old businesses — and vacant buildings.

On those blocks, restaurant Fig & Ash’s menu includes offerings like Elysian fields leg of lamb for $44. A pop-up shop run by Paradise Gray — a hip-hop legend, author, activist and entrepreneur — sits near barber shops and Bernie’s Photo, where people can still get their cameras repaired and film developed. But the area was also the scene of an FBI raid last year after which 17 people were indicted for alleged drug and gang activity.

The 400 block stands out in part because of property sales that, at face value, seem lopsided.

In 2017, the Northside Leadership Conference bought 400-410 East Ohio and 422-426 East Ohio from members of a family of longtime owners for a total of $839,000, according to online county property records.

Masterson, who was apprised of the sales but not involved in them, recounted that the properties were “not good for the street. Everything was falling apart and [prior owners] were content because they could extract cash out of it.” A death in the owners’ family resulted in an opportunity for the conference to buy the properties.

County records indicate that the conference sold the properties to East Ohio Capital for just $50,000 in April 2022.

Northside Leadership Conference Executive Director Jerome Jackson declined to comment, saying he is new to the organization and he can’t answer questions about the high purchase price and low sale price of the buildings. Former director Mark Fatla could not be reached for comment. PublicSource reached out to eight people listed as board members on the conference’s website . Those who could be reached declined or deferred to Jackson for comment.

Masterson said the conference sold the properties for a modest price because Hicks agreed to take on the various debts that were attached to the properties by the former owners. “There was real debt behind these [properties] and the LLC took on that debt and is paying it off,” he said.

Hicks verified the debts and added that the properties “were not great, so [Northside Leadership Conference] stepped in as a nonprofit to get the financing.” He added that he and a partner took on all costs and debts associated with the properties and loaned money to the conference.

“And then we then had the responsibility to take care of the properties.”

Big sale a hit or miss?

Williams said she became involved with the Northside Leadership Conference in 2010 because she was interested in trying to improve the Charles Street Valley, which she described as “a community that has been forgotten for years and has been disinvested in by the city through demolishing homes and neglecting infrastructure.” The city considers the community to be part of Perry South.

She rose through the ranks of the conference with the goal of improving the area by creating affordable housing, green space and programs to help people who are “underrepresented, impoverished and disadvantaged.”

But she eventually became disillusioned with the conference and said she didn’t see enough resources going to impoverished neighborhoods and saw its attention instead focused heavily on East Ohio Street and Western Avenue.

She said she resigned from the conference board presidency in 2019 because she questioned its use of nonprofit funding sources for the benefit of for-profit interests. Her disillusionment was exacerbated in 2022, when the conference opted to sell their East Ohio Street holdings to Hicks’ firm.

Hicks said he first began investing in the North Side in 2010 by flipping residential properties into rentals.

“For some reason, there’s always been a criminal element attracted to the area,” he said. “We feel like that’s going away and police activity has made a big difference. Good foot traffic chases out bad foot traffic, and it’s already gotten much better.”

He said each restaurant owner was chosen with an interest in increasing foot traffic populated by people looking for quality restaurants like Fig and Ash, EYV and Subba. He said the businesses were chosen to create a space where people come and “stick around and shop at the other stores there. Ideally, we can get tenants providing good quality brunch, then go to Farmer’s Daughter [flower shop], then go to [espresso bar] Annex.”

Michael Godlewski, the chef and owner of EYV, said he chose to rent from East Ohio Capital because of a mixture of sentimentality and sound business.

“I always wanted to be part of a neighborhood or community in Pittsburgh,” Godlewski said. “Finding a restaurant space is like falling in love.”

Godlewski settled on East Ohio Street in early 2023 after looking at about 100 locations and then meeting people in the North Side neighborhood.

“Everyone wants to grow it and create that old luster we had,” Godlewski said.

He has become aware that gentrification is a concern for the community. He said he tries to price his food to make it accessible to most people, with entrees no more than $30.

“Any time there’s a redevelopment or boom in the area,” he said, “it’s unfortunate some people will get priced out.”

Last fall, East Ohio Capital’s architect, Nathan Hart, filed a notice of intent to demolish for 406, 408 and 410 East Ohio. Hicks said the demolition will only be on the back side of the addresses, leaving the storefronts to be developed as business spaces.

A Boost Mobile nearby will stay for now, but Hicks said after the cell phone company’s lease expires, his firm will look for something that goes more with the “aesthetic we’re trying to create.”

Masterson predicted that “it’s going to wind up being a mix of businesses that cater to all kinds of people.”

Nonprofit investment attracts for-profit developers

The area around East Ohio Street has “a great mix of affordable housing with the [Allegheny] Commons apartments and you have [Housing Authority City of Pittsburgh] property Pressley [Street] high rise,” said Wilson, the councilman. “But then you have new townhomes probably going for $700,000 and refurbished ones going for the same price.”

Wilson said the Northside Leadership Conference is engaging in community leadership for the benefit of all, by restoring property to the point at which private developers invest. “I think for a long time people wanted to see the transformation of East Ohio and you’re seeing it.”

The new businesses have “great owners, very community involved, progressive in terms of their thinking about making sure streets are safe.”

He observed that in the 600 block there is property owned by the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, but the city body hasn’t been able to find a buyer for it because restoration would cost too much.

“People are interested in fixing up properties but the starting value is too high. Sometimes the selling prices are too high,” he said. “We’d have people knocking down our doors if it wasn’t.”

Correction: Angela Williams remains on the Northside Leadership Conference board as her neighborhood group’s representative, following her resignation from the board’s presidency. An earlier version of this story mischaracterized her resignation.

Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz .

This story was fact-checked by Cionna Sharpe.

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