The former Johnston Elementary School in Wilkinsburg is getting a new life as the combined HQ of an extreme pogo company and for-profit community-oriented co-working space (and I promise I will stop noting this soon, but this is yet another in a series of recent great "living-the-Millenial-dream" articles I have seen):
http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/city-d...mmunity-forge/
Quote:
Ryan, a Carnegie Mellon grad, is the CEO and co-founder of Xpogo. (If you’re not familiar with them, it’s exactly what you’re thinking: an extreme pogo-sticking company.) Formerly based in New York, he was originally looking for a headquarters for his business when he came across the property. There was just one problem: it was too big; it needed something else.
That’s when Ryan’s real estate agent introduced him to a group of six local educators and Ph.D.s working together as Pittsburgh Learning Commons, who were also looking at the space. The two parties joined forces and harmonized their vision: Community Forge will provide community-oriented programming, business and co-working space and will also serve as a community events space. . . .
Ryan imagines a CMU tech startup that also teaches after-school STEM lessons, or a local real estate agent who offers evening classes on first-time home ownership. A large portion of the 20-plus classrooms will be offered at a discount for mission-driven small businesses looking to benefit the community. In addition to after-school programming, Community Forge also hopes to transform the former library into a theater/arts space and fix up the playgrounds adjacent for basketball and pogoing. They plan to tailor their vision as time progresses with input from the community.
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As noted in the article, because this group is for-profit, the building is going back on the tax rolls.
The building is a fairly typical cool old school building, with a prominent location as it is on the path into Downtown Wilkinsburg from the highway:
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4376...7i13312!8i6656