A new view into Hazelwood Green | The Homepage

Developer adds entrances hoping to better connect site with Greenfield, Four Mile Run, Hazelwood

Page 82 of Hazelwood Green’s Preliminary Land Development Plan shows ideas for extending Greenfield Avenue (label added) one block into the development. The area inside the red circle (added) is the project now under construction on Second Avenue. Image from the Hazelwood Green Preliminary Land Development Plan with markup by The Homepage

By Ziggy Edwards

If you’ve traveled along Second Avenue recently, you may have noticed major changes on Hazelwood Green, across from the Saline/Greenfield/Irvine/Second Avenue intersection and railroad trestle. The imposing wall between Second Avenue and Hazelwood Green is gone. Instead, you can see the beginnings of two paths crisscrossing each other in a grassy field. A bench is visible closer to the river.

The sight made me curious enough to ask around to get the scoop.

Austin Gelbard, managing director of Tishman Speyer, was excited to talk about the work in progress.

“I’m into details, the small things,” he told me during an April 16 phone call. He said small things can add up to a big difference in attracting new business to Hazelwood Green.

“This project addresses two things that have been bothering me for a long time,” Mr. Gelbard explained. First, the wall was a physical and mental barrier between the development and surrounding neighborhoods. “There’s about 10,000 cars a day that go by, but you would have no idea Hazelwood Green is on the other side of that wall,” he said. He described the new view as a “peekaboo moment.”

Second, the nearest Hazelwood Green entrances are not welcoming to cyclists and pedestrians coming from Greenfield Avenue or Saline Street.

“There are residents right there in The Run,” Mr. Gelbard said, lamenting that there isn’t a safer and more direct way for them to reach the development.

Currently, the options for pedestrians and cyclists to enter Hazelwood Green from Greenfield or Four Mile Run are:

• Turn left from under the railroad trestle into the Second Avenue construction entrance.

• Stay on the sidewalk to follow “the chute” as it curves to the right along Second Avenue and up Swinburne Street to the trailhead that connects to the Hot Metal Bridge overpass.

• Use the street to turn right onto Second Avenue and then left onto Blair Street. This third option is the most exposed and dangerous.

Already, Mr. Gelbard said he likes to think of this new multi-use path as “the Greenfield Trail.” He sees it as a way to “eventually connect Greenfield Avenue and Saline Street to the Hazelwood Trail” along the riverfront.

For now, creating an entrance for motor vehicles there isn’t possible. But Mr. Gelbard pointed to Hazelwood Green’s Preliminary Development Plan, which calls for extending Greenfield Avenue itself a block into Hazelwood Green.

In the meantime, passersby can expect to see more changes over the coming weeks. Mr. Gelbard said these include more plantings and landscaping, plus a sign that welcomes people to Hazelwood Green.

Tishman Speyer is planning a similar entrance that improves the connection between Tecumseh Street and the new Steelers training facility. Mr. Gelbard said they expect to finish that project by the end of this summer.

Ziggy Edwards is a citizen journalist and resident of Four Mile Run who proofreads every issue of The Homepage.