Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh is preparing to consolidate its operations under one Uptown roof — and place a community garden, trees and dog park on the rooftop.

“We really believe the new building is going to increase the number of people who go through the (organization's Personal Adjustment to Blindness) program,” said President Erika Arbogast.

Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services, a 106-year-old nonprofit, is spending $16 million on the new headquarters, which is scheduled to fully open in March. The organization's manufacturing program already is using the first floor of the five-story building on Locust Street.
Its headquarters are in Homestead, and the manufacturing program has bounced around between locations in recent years. The Uptown headquarters will provide a single, centrally located place to call home with more robust transit service.

The blindness adjustment program helps about 50 people a year learn how to use their white canes, read Braille and accomplish everyday tasks such as cooking, getting dressed and using transit service. Some stay as long as four months.

Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services offers nine beds in five dormitory-like rooms in its Homestead headquarters. The new five-story building in Uptown will have 10 units that Arbogast compared to hotel rooms, each with its own bathroom and designed for one program participant. The building will include two step-down apartments with more of an independent setting.

The blindness adjustment program and the housing units will be based on the building's fourth floor.

The first two floors of the former warehouse will be for the organization's manufacturing program, in which blind and visually impaired employees make a variety of products for customers, including road construction signs, filters for Navy submarines, bed sheets and pillow cases for prisons, and towels for hospitals.

The third floor will house day programs and rehabilitation programs for visually impaired people who have some sight. Administrative offices will be on the fifth floor, with unused space that could be leased to another tenant or used for expansion, Arbogast said.

Brian Rutherford, 44, of the South Side completed the blindness adjustment program and has been sewing in the manufacturing program since last February. The former theater worker, who became blind more than five years ago as a result of four strokes, hems towels and aprons.

“When you're sewing for theater, sometimes you can fudge it because it's on stage, and it doesn't have to last. It's different when you're sewing for state and federal agencies,” Rutherford said.

Rutherford thinks the consolidated location will be beneficial to the organization and those in the program.

“We think they're going to be a great community partner,” said Uptown Partners' Executive Director Jeanne McNutt, referring to the organization's plans to open the rooftop garden and conference rooms to the community. “And we welcome the residential and manufacturing components of the project.”