World-touring Pittsburgh-born rapper Wiz Khalifa will play the inaugural concert at a new venue in the Lower Hill District.
Citizens Live at the Wylie, operated by Live Nation, is still under construction. But the venue announced Monday it will open Oct. 2 with a performance by Wiz, known for hits like “Black and Yellow.”
The venue, a major addition to Pittsburgh’s live-music scene, will seat up to 4,300, including its balcony.
Other shows scheduled this fall include Styx, British singer-songwriter Freya Skye, comedian Chelsea Handler, Boys II Men, Tedeschi Trucks Band, comedian Aries Spears and Sting.
Citizens Live is built near the site of the old Civic Arena, the heart of an area targeted for urban renewal in the 1950s. The original neighborhood’s buildings were demolished, displacing thousands of residents, most of them Black, and taking a wrecking ball to a lively mid-century cultural scene.
Some of the décor in the new building will honor that history, including displays of photographs by Charles “Teenie” Harris, the premiere photographic chronicler of Black life in 20th-century Pittsburgh. (Harris’ archive is owned by the Carnegie Museum of Art.)
And suspended from the ceiling in the lobby bar will be a mirrored piano, in homage to the famous mirrored piano at the Lower Hill’s landmark jazz venue the Crawford Grill.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority on Thursday voted to approve $930,000 from the Greater Hill District Reinvestment Fund to go toward four different projects across the community.
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