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Updated 6 hours ago
I call on the Heinz Endowments, the Kraft Heinz Co. and the Heinz family to honor the legacy of H.J. Heinz and purchase the 1.5 mile stretch of Allegheny riverfront that runs through Sharpsburg into Aspinwall.
Please acquire the property from the would-be developers and establish it as dedicated parkland. Call it Horseradish Park — since the Heinz empire was started in Sharpsburg, with the first product being bottled horseradish.
This will be an important link in the riverfront trail downriver from Aspinwall Riverfront Park and will save the riverfront from the urban sprawl planned by the Riverfront 47 commercial development. Bikers and walkers would be pleased. Boaters and fishermen would be pleased. The Allegheny River is the 2017 River Of The Year — please invest in its future.
Consider also that the Freeport Road corridor and Aspinwall cannot handle additional toxic traffic generated from a commercial development containing hundreds of residences, plus retail, offices, dining, drinking and manufacturing establishments. Environmentalists and drivers would be pleased if those thousands of cars a day didn't materialize. Aspinwall would be pleased to be saved from traffic cutting through the borough and adjacent communities will be pleased to be spared the overflow cutting through theirs.
I believe this is a viable solution to what many perceive to be a disastrous idea, an entrance road to Riverfront 47 from the middle of Aspinwall right through Aspinwall Riverfront Park. The Lemonade Brigade and those of us who donated time and money would be pleased if the park wasn't turned into an entryway to a for-profit development.
Heinz, there is one chance to preserve this riverfront property. If it goes under concrete and asphalt, that will be forever.
If a park is established to recognize the legacy of Heinz in Pittsburgh, that would be a better forever. There are at least 57 reasons to like this solution.
Karen Hart
Aspinwall
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