Aaron Sukenik and Cate Irvin on Sustaining Storefront Activation in Downtown Pittsburgh: An RVP Speaker Spotlight

Empty storefronts are a challenge facing city centers nationwide. In Pittsburgh, the Downtown Partnership turned the urgency of the 2026 NFL Draft into a coordinated, long-term storefront activation strategy that has continued engaging visitors months after the event ended.

At the 2026 Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference, you’ll have an opportunity to join the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership for a guided walking tour on Tuesday, September 22: Sustaining Storefront Activation in Downtown Pittsburgh. You’ll see their strategy in action and leave with a replicable framework of your own.

We asked Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership’s Aaron Sukenik, Vice President of District Development and Cate Irvin, Senior Director of Economic Development, a few questions to give you a preview of what to expect.

What first got you interested in the work of community revitalization?

Aaron: Growing up, there was a wonderful—but dilapidated—playground in our neighborhood. When I was 8 years old (circa 1990), I was swinging on the playground fence and the broken, rusty latch punctured through my cheek, resulting in 24 stitches. From that day on, my mother went on a mission to raise money to renovate that park, forming a “Friends of” group for it. I was immediately put to work stuffing fundraising envelopes! An interest in community revitalization—and the impact that a person can make from the outside—has been with me ever since, throughout my education and career.

Cate: I’ve always been fascinated by why some communities thrive while others struggle. When I was a child, my family moved from Manhattan to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, just as General Electric’s decades-long downsizing was transforming the city. Pittsfield wasn’t a large industrial center with a diverse economy. It was a small city whose identity and prosperity were deeply tied to one major employer. As GE continued to shrink, there wasn’t another industry waiting to absorb those jobs or replace that investment. I watched storefronts close, families move away, schools lose students and teachers, and a community begin the difficult work of reinventing itself.

Those experiences sparked a lifelong curiosity about how communities adapt to economic change. That curiosity led me into nonprofit work in Haiti and Kenya, where I saw the importance of community-led development in very different contexts, and later into academic research in New Orleans, where I studied how cities respond to disruption and reinvention. Today, that same question continues to drive my work in Downtown Pittsburgh: how can we help communities create places that are resilient, vibrant, and positioned for their next chapter?

Why does your session topic matter right now—both for you and for the people who will be in the room? What’s happening in communities today that makes this session feel urgent?

Aaron: City centers across the nation are struggling with the same issues: empty large retail spaces (think former Rite Aids and CVSs), reduced tenant demand for such large retail spaces, and sky-high renovation costs for new tenant buildout. In Pittsburgh, we developed and implemented a strategy that activates vacant retail spaces through five options for intervention, tailored to each type of space.

Cate: Downtowns across the country are navigating a period of profound transition. Vacancy is no longer just the result of a weak economy. It’s the product of changing consumer behavior, new work patterns, rising construction costs, and evolving expectations about what our commercial districts should be. Communities can’t afford to wait passively for the “right tenant” to appear. They need practical strategies that activate spaces today, while laying the groundwork for long-term investment tomorrow.

Our session is about moving beyond pop-ups as one-off events and thinking about storefront activation as part of a broader economic development strategy. We’ll share what we’ve learned in Pittsburgh, but more importantly, we’ll discuss a framework that communities can adapt to their own markets, whether they’re preparing for a major event or simply trying to rebuild momentum one storefront at a time.

What made you want to be a part of RVP this year?

Aaron: In the run up to Downtown Pittsburgh hosting the NFL Draft in April 2026, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership marshalled funding from a few local foundations to partner with dozens of local nonprofits, property owners, artists, and entrepreneurs to activate over 50 vacant spaces. With all activations delivered in March and April 2026, these business concepts and visual content will engage visitors and daily users of Downtown for months and years to come.

Cate: The 2026 NFL Draft gave Downtown Pittsburgh an opportunity to accelerate years of work around storefront activation and test ideas at a scale we couldn’t have accomplished otherwise. By partnering with property owners, artists, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, foundations, and the public sector, we activated more than 50 vacant storefronts throughout Downtown. Some were temporary art installations, others became pop-up businesses, and several have already transitioned into long-term leases.

I’m excited to share what we learned, not because Pittsburgh has all the answers, but because many communities are trying to solve similar challenges. RVP brings together people who are excited to exchange ideas, learn from one another, and leave with practical strategies they can put into action in their own communities.

Want to see it for yourself? Join us at the Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference, September 22–25, 2026 in Pittsburgh. Register for the walking tour and dozens of other sessions about every stage of the revitalization cycle.

Register for RVP 2026 »