Post-Gazette: Pittsburgh's Fifth Avenue retail reborn

Lower Fifth Avenue is becoming the Eliza Doolittle of Downtown.

Once a gloomy stretch of boarded up buildings and empty storefronts for the most part, Fifth between Wood and Market streets now boasts a shimmering new office tower and elegantly restored turn-of-the-century buildings, scrubbed and polished to bring out rich architectural detail lost to decades of soot and neglect.

And with the metamorphosis, retail, once the lifeblood of the corridor, could be poised to make a comeback.

In the last six months, two clothing stores and a shoe shop have opened in the stretch between Wood and Market, and a small women's boutique is on the way next month.