"We need a shared civic space that brings people together in what is truly the heart of our community."
Commissioner Andrew Flynn said that about Clocktower Plaza during a commission discussion this year, and this weekend the plaza is doing exactly that job. More than 60 artists have their booths set up in Academy Lot, tucked behind The Saloon and across from Rollier Hardware, for the Mt. Lebanon Partnership's Artists' Market, running Saturday and Sunday. The same stretch of Washington Road is carrying its usual fall lineup alongside it: Uptown Market across from Washington Elementary, Kids' Paint Out at Clearview Common, and Pittsburgh Eggfest in Rollier's parking lot.
None of that is unusual for a fall weekend on Washington Road. What's unusual is the timing. The plaza, the stairway down to the T station, and the park where the kids are painting are all first in line for a redesign the municipality has already started funding. Walk it this weekend the way you always have, because next year it will look different.
The Plaza Everyone Is Standing In
Clocktower Plaza is where First Fridays crowds, festival stragglers, and people cutting through to the parking garage all end up standing at the same time. The plaza itself hasn't had a dedicated redesign since a 1993 streetscape project, even after the Vibrant Uptown work refreshed the sidewalks, lighting and planters along Washington Road a few years ago. That changes soon. The municipality put $200,000 into its 2026 budget to start phase one of a project called Activate Uptown, and Clocktower Plaza is one of two sites getting attention first, according to a recent commissioner's column on the project.
The plan came out of a survey that drew more than 1,300 responses from residents and stakeholders, worked up with the planning firm Pashek + MTR. Shade structures and public art are on the list, along with something the plaza doesn't have now: theatrical lighting meant to make the space usable after dark instead of just a pass-through. One detail from the survey stands out. Seventy-three percent of respondents said the municipality needed to deal with the vacant lot next to the plaza, left empty since a house was demolished there in 2023. That's not a design complaint. It's a specific, visible gap that a chunk of the community flagged on its own.
The Stairway With an Official Name
Most people walking down from Washington Road to the light rail stop just call it the stairs. In the planning documents, it's the Portal, and it's the second site getting money from that same $200,000 phase-one budget. Right now it's a stairway. The plan adds bike and stroller runnels, new lighting, and artwork, small changes that add up to a different daily experience for anyone using it to get to the T or back from Uptown to a car in the Alfred Street lot.
Economic development coordinator Eric Milliron has said the plan is meant to make Uptown a hangout spot and regional destination, not just somewhere people come for dinner and leave. The Portal is a strange place to test that idea, since it's mostly a transit connector, but it's also one of the few spots in Uptown that almost everyone passes through regardless of why they're there.
Clearview Common's Turn Comes Later
The biggest single piece of Activate Uptown is Clearview Common, the small park with the fountain at Washington Road and Alfred Street, where the Kids' Paint Out is happening this weekend. The proposal calls for expanding the park to roughly two and a half times its current size, with water steps and shaded swing gardens replacing what's there now. It's the most expensive phase and the furthest out, coming after Clocktower Plaza and the Portal are finished.
The open question is Alfred Street itself. About half of survey respondents favored closing it entirely to make room for the larger common, while others suggested cutting on-street parking or making it one-way instead. None of that has been decided. The commission has been clear that the four sites are phased and that Clearview Common is the long-term piece, not something arriving alongside this year's $200,000.
The Storefronts Already Moved First
While the public spaces are still in the planning stage, the storefronts around them have already turned over. Golden Beetle, the home goods and gift shop that opened off Washington Road in 2023, moved into a larger space at 733 Washington Road this August. A few doors down, T2 Hair & Nails opened this summer at 671 Washington Road with close to 200 clients already on a waitlist before the doors opened. The restaurant mix has widened too over the past couple of years, with Cafe Flore's Parisian-style pastries and Piyola's Uzbek plov joining longtime anchors like Empire Music and Commonwealth Press.
That kind of turnover isn't background noise. It's the reason Gov. Josh Shapiro picked Mt. Lebanon, specifically, to stand in Empire Music's showroom in 2024 and announce a proposed $25 million statewide Main Street Matters program, pointing to Mt. Lebanon's completed Vibrant Uptown streetscape project as the model other Pennsylvania towns should follow. Empire Music's owner, Joe Ravita, put it this way at that same event:
"What's really unique about this uptown district is that the businesses are born out of the needs of the community."
The public spaces are catching up to something the storefronts already figured out. New owners kept choosing this half-mile of Washington Road before the municipality had committed a dollar to redesigning the plazas between the buildings.
The Artists' Market wraps up Sunday afternoon, and Eggfest smoke will clear out of Rollier's lot not long after. Next fall, the walk from that lot to Clocktower Plaza will pass through shade structures and lighting that don't exist yet, and the stairs down to the T will have runnels where there are none now. This weekend is the last version of that walk in its current shape.
Lynne Bingham and The Bingham Team keep a close eye on Uptown because a business district that keeps attracting new owners and public investment says something real about a neighborhood's staying power. If you're curious how projects like Activate Uptown tend to shape home values on the streets around them, reach out and we'll walk you through what we're seeing.
