PHILADELPHIA -- It's one thing to build a business.
It's quite another to walk through its front door ... right Downtown ... on freaking Fifth Avenue.
Oh, for real:
Photo-illustration: DALI KOVACEVIC / DKPS
Streetscape of our new location at Market Square Place, Fifth Avenue, Downtown.
In March, construction and coronavirus permitting, DK Pittsburgh Sports will open its first fully dedicated headquarters at street level of 224 Fifth, opposite the Fairmont Hotel, and part of a beautifully refurbished historic building within the Market Square Place complex. It'll serve as our company's bricks-and-mortar home, as well as a podcasting studio and a one-of-a-kind shop offering souvenirs, art, photography and other merchandise related to our city's sports scene.
Interested in Dave DiCello's iconic photography?
Or Cody Sabol's incredible paintings of our athletes?
Both will be fixtures there.
How about Rob Ullman's illustrations of our sports history?
It wouldn't be home without our staff cartoonist.
We'll offer all kinds of other souvenirs and merchandise, including, of course, our own stuff. We'll have features that let newcomers know who we are, not least of which will be a panoramic video wall that'll allow them to check out the site and subscribe at an introductory rate. We'll have special events such as Q&As with our staff, guest presentations, book signings and the like. And in the studio section, we'll record live videos and/or podcasts, proudly putting out our location.
In general, it's a place that we hope will be worthy of the world-class community we've already created together here in cyber-space.
I don't want to get too far ahead of this. We're 100% committed and all that, but there's work to do, and we'll undoubtedly shift or add priorities as we proceed. But I can tell you that Dali, our partner David Rosenblatt and I have already put in a ton of hours on this, and the planning's deep enough that all of what's above should be expected.
From the business perspective, we see this as an opportunity to grow the brand in the best way possible. By being visible and accessible in the very heart of our civic center. Anyone who knows Downtown, particularly the portion in and around Market Square, knows of the many great things happening there. And once the pandemic recedes, the foot traffic that's already recovering will soon be all the way back and we'll have 125,000 workers within walking distance.
From the subscriber perspective, we want this to be your HQ, too. We're working on an interactive feature that'll allow readers to check in and, in essence, drop a pin on a map that'll eventually paint a sweeping picture of how far our reach has grown. We'll also dedicate a full wall -- details on this are still in the works -- to anyone contributing to the build itself. Kind of like that Green Bay Packers 'ownership' thing we were bouncing around a few months ago.
And from the personal perspective ... man, where to start?
Anyone who knows me can acknowledge I've got few loves in this life quite like my love of Downtown. Remarkably, my mother and father were living in an apartment on Stanwix Street when I was born, and that's before hardly anyone called the Golden Triangle home. I'm about as Downtown as you get. I've forever been invested in its history, its people and, naturally, its well-being. When the pandemic hit, as some will recall, we offered free advertising to all Downtown businesses throughout 2020.
Dali and I scouted other sites. Strip District. North Shore. Even further out. But she knew and I knew nothing was going to tug at these heartstrings like being Downtown. It took a few months for the right situation to emerge, and when it did, and when it involved the extraordinary work that Millcraft and the Piatt family's already done in our core, and when the space itself was just picture-perfect ... we were done as done gets.
Yes, we'll be there. Yes, I'll be there. It can't be 24/7, but I don't get into things like this to fail. I want to be there as much as covering sports will permit, to be able to shake your hand, to tell our story to even more people and to propel this venture into something that's truly a part of the fabric of Pittsburgh.
I'll hold that door for you, my friends. With a smile as broad as the block itself.
