Pittsburgh Glass Center completes $15 million expansion
A year and a half after breaking ground , Pittsburgh Glass Center has completed a $15 million expansion of its headquarters on Penn Avenue, in Friendship.
The project — which added a whole new third floor to the building — took the Center from 16,000 square feet to 27,000 square feet, an increase of about 70%.
The expansion was needed because the nonprofit group was struggling to accommodate the 9,000 students in glass-blowing and more that it was hosting each year alongside professional artists renting studio space.
"We can now finally spread out a little and have room for all the different things we're doing," said executive director Heather McElwee.
The completion was formally announced at a ceremony Tuesday that featured dignitaries severing a ribbon of molten glass with special glass-cutting scissors.
The Glass Center was founded in 2001, an early component of what become the Penn Avenue arts corridor. It attracted a loyal following with its classes and studios for glass-blowing, glass-finishing and more, as well as its year-round gallery.
The expansion allows the Center to devote its original, second-floor "hot shop" exclusively to classes, while professionals will now use the new hot shop on the third floor. The "cold shop" for grinding, etching and polishing has moved into a larger space. And the gift shop is permanently ensconced in the Center's lobby, relocated from its long-time makeshift location in a nearby walkway.
Two new additions are not yet operational. The neon and plasma lab, for two different techniques for combining glass-blowing, reactive gasses and electricity, is expected to come online this fall, McElwee said. And the fabrication lab, which will include such high-tech gear as 3D printers and a laser cutter, is expected to be functional in early 2025.
The expansion also gave the building's Penn Avenue façade a new look, featuring glass panels tinted pink, yellow and orange. (The energy-efficient glass was donated by Cheswick-based Vitro Architectural Glass.) A new third-floor open-air deck overlooks Penn with a panoramic view of East Liberty.
