Feb 22, 2013 2 min read

CHARLEROI – The borough of Charleroi has formed a supercommittee to chart a course for reviving the Mon Valley town.

The 24-member committee, named Revive 2016, will hold its first meeting March 18 at a time when the borough’s downtown is already showing signs of rebirth, borough manager Donn Henderson said.

“We need to develop a revival strategy to turn things around, and it’s going to take a lot of people to get it started,” Henderson said Friday.

Charleroi’s downtown was once among those in Pennsylvania with the highest retail sales per capita, until the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s, coupled with competition from malls, left many of its storefronts vacant and falling into disrepair.

“We have to get some different people to the table,” Henderson said.

He said the panel consists of a member of borough council, business owners and professionals from out of state who will join discussions via conference call. Henderson said it’s becoming difficult to find a table at downtown restaurants or a parking space in the borough lot, which holds 500 vehicles.

Some of the new traffic is attributed to Southwestern Pennsylvania Health Services relocating its headquarters from nearby Monessen to a strip mall beside the borough lot. There are new tenants in a former department store at 501 McKean Ave., and the borough hopes to install an elevator in its building for a new community center in development.

“Yes, you can be successful here if you work at it,” Henderson said.

The meeting will begin at 3:30 p.m. in the borough building at 338 Fallowfield Ave.