When the Almono development site along the Monongahela River was renamed Hazelwood Green in 2017, Center of Life CEO Tim Smith said the Hazelwood neighborhood “is going to embrace it because Hazelwood is in it.”Seven years and a month later, the community empowerment nonprofit has announced plans for a new community center on the site which will further its mission to support Hazelwood residents.“Hazelwood people go back five generations and they’re still here,” Smith says. “We want to make sure that we are empowering people to help them get better educations, better jobs, better opportunities for resources.”Center of Life announced the three story, 127,000 square foot building at its future site — on the corner of Lytle Street and Hazelwood Avenue — on Friday, Nov. 15. To Smith and other community members, the site’s placement is just as special as its existence; it sits on the same land as the old Jones & Laughlin Steel Mill — the area’s primary employer at one time.“This is the place where there used to be a fence where people who wanted a job, sometimes they’d stand at that fence and they would look like they were ready to work and they would get a job — actually, my father did that,” Smith says. “We want this to be a free place for people to be able to come through.“We want it to be an umbilical cord — the one that connects the developing community to the existing community.”A crowd of community members gathers for the announcement of Center of Life’s new community center on Nov. 15. Photo by Roman Hladio.Smith says there are plans for the space to host a fitness center, a hydroponic farm and coworking spaces. Primary Care Health Services, Inc. will offer health care from the space and the Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center will use its new tenancy to continue offering its education programming.Students from the University of Pittsburgh’s schools of nursing and child development will work in the space, and, as a tenant, the University will provide resources for college-bound Hazelwood residents.The Center of Life project comes a little over a month after Tishman Speyer, Trek Development and the Pittsburgh Scholar House announced Hazelwood Green’s first residential development, which will bring 50 units of housing to the property in early 2027.Both of these projects foreground a connection to Hazelwood and promote growth in the community without pushing out its current residents — a sentiment echoed by Almono LP, the local foundation partnership that owns the land.Almono donated the 5.3 acre site to Center of Life.“Almono and [Center of Life], as a community-based organization dedicated to empowering youth and families, have for many years collaborated in programming to ensure that this physical, social, and economic community connection gets stronger every day,” says Todd Stern, a development advisor to Almono LP, in a Center of Life press release.Center of Life CEO Tim Smith speaks to press at the announcement of the organization’s new community center. Photo by Roman Hladio. The new hub is just over half a mile from Center of Life’s current home at the corner of Hazelwood and Sylvian Avenues. Smith says that for Center of Life, it will provide the opportunity to physically consolidate after operating out of two leased buildings for so long. At the same time, it’ll serve that same purpose for countless community organizations like Jada House International, The Hazelwood Initiative and POORLAW.“We do need space for the community to come together,” Smith says.The project was designed by WTW Architects — a subsidiary of AE Works — is set to break ground in the fourth quarter of 2025, with completion expected some time in 2026.Current estimates place its cost between $50 and $70 million. Center of Life is engaged in a capital funding campaign with Carter Global to reach its goal, but Smith did not say how far along funding was.Homer Craig sat in a folding chair watching as Smith and other development partners spoke. He kept in his seat, cane in hand, as music began ringing out from speakers covered speakers with plastic bags to keep dry in the rain.The 85-year-old is a lifelong resident of Hazelwood. His father and grandfather worked in the nearby steel mill, and his whole family felt the despair of its closure.In 2001, he was a Sergeant in the Pittsburgh Police force when then-Mayor Tom Murphy tapped him for a steering committee. He was to review and grant funding requests. It was there that he learned to heed his parent’s advice: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”“This young man, tall, athletic with dreadlocks down to here,” Craig points to his shoulder, “comes before me, and I said, ‘Whoa, this has got to be a Rastafarian,’ because if he had a blunt hanging out of his lips, I would have sworn he was Bob Marley.”Smith was the doppelganger; he was looking to start Center of Life.“Like I said, you don’t judge a book by the cover,” Craig says. “There was no way that I could look at this person and see it was a man of God, but he had a dream — just like another great American.“But unlike that other great American, he was able to enter the promised land. This, Hazelwood, is the promised land.”The post Center of Life to put down roots at Hazelwood Green with new community hub appeared first on NEXTpittsburgh.