Release Date: Wednesday, January 9th 2008

POP City: Commercial leases filling up in Downtown Pittsburgh's Market Square

From fitness to jewelry, Downtown’s Market Square is being energized by several new businesses.

SHAPE Fitness Center, Downtown's first personal functional training facility, recently opened on Market St. above Bruegger’s. Teaching safe exercise techniques, SHAPE offers personal and group training, nutritional counseling and even belly dancing classes.

Adding to Downtown’s fitness offerings is Gold's Gym, opening this week at 100 Forbes Ave. The two-story facility houses on-site parking, aerobics rooms, weight machines, and a sauna.

This month, Amy Epstein Jewelry opened at 433 Graeme Street B, adjacent to Camera Repair Service. Carrying pieces crafted in Israel and France, children’s jewelry, and items made from fresh water pearls and hand blown glass, the shop is decorated with 100-year-old barn doors and hand-me-down handkerchiefs. “This area is up and coming. The YMCA is coming in and PNC is building here. I’m in a really cute ground level store,” says owner Amy Epstein, who worked with Anthropologie decorator Tiffany Pomarico on the boutique's design.

In November, MixStirs Café opened at 431 Market St. “There’s great foot traffic from PPG Place and they’re open on Saturdays and Steeler Sundays. In the spring they're putting in micro doors. Fifty-percent of the façade will open into the Square. It’s really going to spruce up that corner,” says Sean Luther, with Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, who adds that 59 residential rental units are also available in the Square. “There’s almost no rentable commercial space in Market Square."

Writer: Jennifer Baron Sources: Amy Epstein; Sean Luther, Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership

Photograph of Amy Epstein Jewelry copyright Brian Cohen