Greetings Reuse Fans,
Yesterday, I made a quick stop to look in on the Millvale Moose and see the handiwork of Project RE_ and the Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS). The Moose has been repurposed into the Millvale Food and Energy Hub, a project of New Sun Rising (NSR), which also has its main office at the Moose.
Project RE_ was engaged over a year ago to design and construct elements to support the Hub’s commercial kitchen and café space. The kitchen supports a value added food project by 412 Food Rescue and Sprezzatura. In the future, Sprezzatura will be operating the Hub’s café – so stay tuned for the opening date. When I visited, Jen Saffron, proprietor of Sprezzatura, was working with a group of women from Afghanistan looking to open a catering business! We are very excited to have Sprezzatura providing the food this year in the new VIP area at the Steel City Big Pour, our annual fundraiser. (Tickets at all levels available here.)

The UDBS designed a café counter of rolling carts, made from dorm furniture wood and salvaged marble brought in by our pickup and deconstruction crews, the canopy over the café/kitchen counter, and the green wall. The counter and green wall are modular, giving NSR and its tenants the ability to reconfigure the space to suit just about any programing needs, including weddings and community meetings! I loved having a “front row seat” in the fabrication of each of these three elements, but this was the first time seeing them working together, doing their job and I was truly inspired by the result – as well as by the cool stuff happening in the space!
Enjoy the photos more on the way! – look for the Moose, which is a little more challenging to find than the new sun.