Westmoreland County summit aims to revitalize local downtowns, fight blight

"Revitalizing Main Street" is the focus of the fifth annual Blight and Revitalization Summit, happening this Friday at Westmoreland County Community College.

The event, hosted by the Westmoreland County Redevelopment Authority and Land Bank, brings together community leaders and residents to find ways to improve local downtowns.

Brian Lawrence, executive director of the organization, says that addressing blight across the county is ongoing work without a real finish line.

"One of the challenges we have in Westmoreland County is that there are a lot of these types of properties. And a lot of them have been lingering for five, 10, 15 years," Lawrence said.

Take, for example, the former Royer's department store in downtown Greensburg, right along Main Street. Lawrence says it's been sitting vacant for nearly two decades, and inside, it's quickly deteriorating.

He says communities are often faced with a tough choice: spend around $6 million in taxpayer money to restore a building like this or spend closer to $500,000 to tear it down, clear the space, and give that stretch of Main Street a fresh start.

Lawrence says blight can be tackled more effectively when local leaders have the right tools and information, and that's the idea behind this Friday's summit.

"Many of the attendees that come to our blight summits are local officials because they are the ones who are tasked with addressing these blighted, vacant, and abandoned buildings," Lawrence said. "But we want to see nonprofits who are interested in turning that vacant lot into a community garden. We want to talk with developers about the property that's not yet too far gone, that has some life in it. We really do see this as a broad-based approach towards community engagement and involvement and ways to learn how to build community and revitalize our downtowns."

If you would like more information about attending the Blight and Revitalization Summit, click here.