Kudos & Good News: March 2019

February 28, 2019

Congratulations to Dave Thomas, URA Real Estate asset manager, who is retiring after being with the URA for 34+ years. Thank you for your dedicated service and contributions to the City of Pittsburgh!

Executive Director Robert Rubinstein recognizes Dave's 34+ years of service at the February 2019 Board Meeting.

Dave and his coworkers celebrating his retirement

Congratulations to Diamonte Walker, URA director of Performance and Compliance and MWBE program officer on being named one of Pittsburgh Business Times 2019 Women of Influence!
Congratulations to Tynishia Powell, URA associate counsel, who attended and won the 2018 Blank Rome Women’s Leadership Summit and Hackathon, with a team of women attorneys. Her team was tasked with creating a solution for consumers of legal services who want to see insight into what value they are getting from the legal dollars they spend. Tynishia's team devised an app titled "Blank Rome Concierge" to monitor case work in real time and deliver penetrating insights into resource deployment.

Kudos to Sarah McKeon, Madlene Augello and Josette Fitzgibbons who all participated in the Race to Anyplace on February 23. Madlene and Josette spun for the YMCA at US Steel Tower on the Forged in Steel Team, which came in second place in the Y division. Sarah spun for the Urban Elements team. Money from the event was donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Another big congratulations to Tynishia Powell, who accepted the Homer S. Brown Young Leadership Award from the Allegheny County Bar Association on February 28 for her leadership qualities and commitment to the promotion of equality and the advancement of justice among the African-American community. The URA is proud to have such a dedicated individual on our team.

Tynishia with her grandmother and husband Tom Powell

At its February meeting, the URA Board voted to approve the commencement of construction on the Produce Terminal in the Strip District. Executive Director Robert Rubinstein said the final version represents a “great plan that everyone can be proud of.”
Adrich, a URA-supported startup, recently secured seed funding from Sony Innovation Fund.
Beauty Shoppe was featured in TribLive for its redevelopment of historic buildings into co-working spaces, and the Detective Building renovation was featured again in Metropolis Magazine.
Altius in Mt. Washington once again made OpenTable's list of top-rated restaurants in Pittsburgh.
Boutique La Passerelle was recognized as one of Pittsburgh's best boutiques.
Honeycomb Credit expanded its crowd-financing platform into Ohio.