Pittsburgh’s newest music venue is on track to open this fall, and Citizens Live at the Wylie provided a preview at what the interior should look like.
Set to open in October, the venue, with a capacity of 4,000 people, is located in Pittsburgh’s Lower Hill District, near PPG Paints Arena and FNB’s new headquarters. Blueprint Studio, which is Live Nation’s in-house design and development group, created the computer-generated flythrough video.
Tom Loudermilk, who serves as Live Nation’s Pittsburgh region market president, said he’s often taken different paths to view the progress of the project, which broke ground last March.
“I’ve got to think it’s going to be a real game-changer for the market as far as what a fan could expect to get to experience when they see the act,” he said.
Loudermilk said the venue can be reconfigured in a number of ways to accommodate a wide range of acts.
”I love the fact that one night it can do classic rock. The next night, it can do a quiet theater-style performance fully seated,” he said. “The night after that, it can do EDM. The night after that, it can do punk rock and then hip hop.”
He’s hoping that flexibility will bring in even more shows to the region.
“The goal from the very beginning has been, if we want to elevate Pittsburgh, in the minds — we all know what Pittsburgh is and we’re all proud of it — but if we want to elevate it in the minds of the artists and their representatives, then we have to be willing to build best-in-class options for the artist experience.
“Blueprint Studios is the group that works within Live Nation to build these views. And they have that unique goal to make sure that they’re building something that both is going to really attract an artist to come play the market, the venue, but also is gonna deliver the best experience for a fan.”
The venue partnered with the Carnegie Museum of Art for a photo display celebrating the Hill District’s history. The displays on the main stairway and throughout the building will include images from the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive.
The Crawford Grill, the famed jazz club, was located about 10 blocks up Wylie Avenue, and the new venue will pay tribute to it, featuring a mirrored piano on the ceiling, similar to one at the jazz institution.
Loudermilk, who moved to Pittsburgh in 2017, said he’s appreciated getting to know the history of the area.
“To go and speak to all the different community organizations within the Hill and residents of the Hill and people that have had generations of lived experience there, it was really, really cool to learn the history there,” he said. “And it became really important for this venue to tell that story and figure out — and I think we’re going to figure it out as this venue is open — how we continue to move that story into the 21st century. That’s kind of the whole idea here. We want to show where we’ve been, and we want to be part of where we’re going.”
Other features include a rooftop lounge with a view of Downtown Pittsburgh and The Vinyl Room, a premium area/listening lounge, inspired by Japanese vinyl culture.
A retail spot reserved for Black-owned businesses will be coordinated by the Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority, according to Loudermilk.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source triblive.com ’
