State of the Strip District: Slow down on development but a new boost in retail

PITTSBURGH — Sea Monkey, a new nightclub by Richard DeShantz Restaurant Group.

Western Pennsylvania’s first retail store for Design Within Reach, an upscale furniture store.

The Roaming Bean’s first coffee shop that isn’t based on its popular food truck.

They’re all individual newcomers along Smallman Street, but combined they point to a larger trend of successfully expanding retail and restaurants in the Strip District, which added 16 new businesses last year in the strongest year for the neighborhood since 2022, against only three business closings.

That’s according to the new State of the Strip Report, which Strip District Neighbors released Wednesday, charting a year in which the ongoing wave of residential construction slowed amid various development challenges, with population growth slowing along with it. Yet at the same time, the neighborhood found other ways to grow.

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