How money and policing are rebuilding East Hills
February 10, 2008 | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The old institutional feel of the place is gone.
In Second East Hills, New York-based developer Telesis Corp. individualized the 326 units with new designs and bright colors.
It cost $44 million, but the neighborhood now looks more like a suburban development than a housing project.
“The physical condition has improved, so people have pride,” said Sharon Fields, a community volunteer who lives with her 19-year-old son, a technical school student in the process of moving into his own apartment. “Before, it looked like a concentration camp. Now, it’s pepped up.”
Telesis also built an immaculate community center for meetings, after-school programs and domestic seminars.
The company intends to tear down the nearby Third East Hills co-op community of 140 units and rebuild them, too.
That effort had been stalled by a federal lawsuit filed by some residents who feel they are being forced out. But Patricia Baylock of CT Management, which supervises the Telesis properties, says she expects the project to get rolling within 30 days despite the suit.