After 10 years in our current office location, PULSE will be moving to the One Valley coworking space in Hazelwood in June.
Though our physical address is changing, we will maintain 5615 Stanton Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15206 as our business mailing address.
Farewell to Garfield
The East End has changed greatly since we came to our current offices in Garfield in 2012. We wanted to be part of the East End’s reinvestment and over the years, have partnered with nonprofits such as East Liberty Development, Inc., Grow Pittsburgh, the Union Project, the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation, and more to invest our time, finances, and human resources.
Through our time in the East End, we’ve had the opportunity to see the seeds we’ve planted (some literal) start to grow. Fellows have lived in several houses in the East End through the years, starting with our first location on Stanton. Our hope is that by living in a community and getting to know its residents and culture, our Fellows will grow to continue to live there and invest their time and energy after their service year. Through the years, we’ve seen this happen and know that many of our alumni still call the East End their home.
Our Fellows and Alumni have not only lived here, but they’ve continued to serve the community. Among their efforts: One alumni started the Union Project, a nonprofit community arts and education space. A group of Fellows started the Kincaid Street Garden, a former vacant lot transformed into a community garden. The Union Project is still going strong, offering more and more arts programming in its facility and out in the community. The community garden has been purchased by the Allegheny Land Trust, and will be maintained as a community garden in perpetuity, maintained by Grow Pittsburgh and local Garfield community members.
We’ve seen many changes in the community and now we’re making a change as well. In late February, our office landlord let us know he was moving back and would need our office for his work from home space. Normally, such a significant change would feel overwhelming, but this time we felt that everything was falling into place for a reason.
Hello, Hazelwood!
Our staff members, Markeya Lowry and Jay Carter have deep connections to Hazelwood. Jay was born and raised there. Markeya has also lived in Hazelwood and spent several years working there with Community Kitchen. We had hosted a couple of our weekly seminars at a co-working space called One Valley and when we knew we needed to find our next office space, they were able to work with us to find a space within our budget.
There are many reasons we’re excited about this move. The building is a beautiful example of reclaiming once-abandoned industrial space and evolving it for current and future needs. Many of the tenants are entrepreneurs and start-ups and we hope that working in this space together will help PULSE identify new ideas, partnerships, and possible opportunities for funding. (The fact that they have a really nice in-house coffee bar was not a deciding factor, but it certainly didn’t hurt.)
More important than the space and its amenities is its presence in Hazelwood and the potential for PULSE to be a thoughtful neighbor and collaborator. As the East End was 10 years ago, Hazelwood is experiencing many changes. While it’s exciting that many people and companies are realizing the potential of this community; we know that this potential has always existed and has been nurtured by generations of Hazelwood residents and community organizations. We are excited by the possibilities for partnership and collaboration in this community we’ll soon be calling our home base. As a small nonprofit, there are many things PULSE doesn’t have; but we do have amazing human resources!
Once our move is completed in June, we hope to host a networking opportunity to see the new space and meet our new neighbors. Keep an eye out for further information!