The August Wilson Center for African American Culture didn’t have to go far to find its new CEO and president. After a three-year search, the boardon Thursday named Janis Burley Wilson to lead the center into the future.

Ms. Burley Wilson, 52, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust vice president for Strategic Partnership and Community Engagement and director of Jazz Programs, has been a primary events programmer for Downtown's August Wilson Center since it was acquired in 2014 by the Pittsburgh Foundation, Heinz Endowments and Richard King Mellon Foundation.

AWC board chairman Michael Polite said nearly 50 applicants were vetted in the search for a leader.

“They did a national search, and I’m glad that they did. I love working at the Trust and I will miss it but it is right down the street, and this is the best of both worlds,” Ms. Burley Wilson said. “We will be working together closely. We will be putting together a strategic plan in the coming weeks and months. but my main focus now is putting together a really strong team."

“Janis brings a deep knowledge of the Pittsburgh arts and cultural scene, and strong relationships with the community stakeholders and grantmakers,” Mr. Polite said.

Mr. Polite would not disclose her salary, other than saying it is six figures. He praised her as a proven fundraiser, which will be a key part of her job.

Ms. Burley Wilson officially steps into her new role on Sept. 1.

Janis Burley Wilson Lake Fong/Post-Gazette

Among Ms. Burley Wilson’s priorities will be “to develop an individual giving entity” and to diversify donor resources, she said. While noting the generosity of Pittsburgh’s foundation community, she also foresees funding from national and international sources. “As Andy Warhol is an international name, so is August Wilson,” she said.

Ms. Burley Wilson, who is not related to the late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, said the center’s name should serve it will as an international brand.

“August Wilson is from Pittsburgh but he is known globally, so I am of the belief that we should try to bring world-class art to the August Wilson Center,” she said. “The galleries are phenomenal, the stage is impeccable, the facility is stunning. It is a perfect showcase ... to celebrate African-American art and art of the African-American diaspora. And in addition to that, we will find ways to promote our local artists, which is a lot of what I did with the Trust.”

The center has been without a CEO since 2012, when Andre Kimo Stone Guess left in 2012 after two years. At the time, the mortgage had been refinanced from $11.2 million to $7 million, thanks to the R.K Mellon and Kresge foundations, the Urban Redevelopment Authority and Dollar Bank.

The 65,000-square-foot building on Liberty Avenue at the edge of the Cultural District had opened in 2009 with the promise of becoming a full-time facility, but it never found its footing and in 2014 was sold to Dollar Bank at a sheriff’s sale. The building almost was sold to a developer that wanted to build a hotel atop it, but the consortium of the Pittsburgh, Heinz and Mellon foundations stepped in to purchase the center for $7.9 million.

“It was too important to fall into the hands of callous commercialism and too important not to share with the world,” Ms. Burley Wilson said, acknowledging the work of the stakeholders who rallied to maintain the center as a focal point for African-American culture.

As the board and a vision took shape, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust entered as a partner, providing programming, ticketing services, maintenance and whatever assistance an umbrella organization the size of the Trust could muster.

While the center’s budget will change as it embarks on new initiatives, Mr. Polite said it costs $1.4 million to maintain and operate the building annually. Another $1 million is budgeted for programming.

Along with grants provided by the foundations for artistic and educational ventures at the center, Ms. Burley Wilson took the lead in programming Trust events into the facility.

The building, with its gargantuan lobby, had never found a visual way to embrace the legacy of its namesake — until Ms. Burley Wilson invited Pittsburgh native Tarish Pipkins to create a mural honoring the playwright and make it a community event. The mural, with a larger-than-life portrait of the Pulitzer Prize winner, now faces the threshold of the center, so the first encounter for all who enter is the building’s namesake.

Ms. Burley Wilson, a Monroeville resident and 1983 graduate of Penn Hills High School, studied communications/Hispanic Languages and Culture at the University of Pittsburgh, earned her M.Ed at Duquesne and had additional graduate studies at American University. She signed onto the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust in 2002, where she was instrumental in creating community engagement in the arts through programs such as Showcase Noir and the Gallery Crawl.

Ms. Burley Wilson, the mother of two daughters and a son, also is a hat designer who creates and sells hats through Janis B. et Al Millinery, which she founded in 1995.

During the long search for a new leader for the August Wilson Center, the board continued to bolster relationships with groups such as AWC Renewal, made up of people who had led the fight to save the center from becoming a hotel. Mr. Polite said AWC Renewal will have a role as a producer of programming.

Mayor William Peduto, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, the Heinz Endowment’s Grant Oliphant and Ms. Burley Wilson’s now former boss, Kevin McMahon, were on hand to celebrate this next step in the AWC’s development.

Mr. McMahon said the moment was “bittersweet” -- sweet because he will continue working with Ms. Burley Wilson. He was not yet sure if the Trust would look within or conduct a search for her replacement, but he said there was a possibility they could continue to collaborate on the Trust's Pittsburgh JazzLive Festival.

“The August Wilson Center will thrive," she said, "not just because I am here, but because we are all on this voyage collectively and we have no choice but to arrive at sustainability.”

Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg.

First Published: July 20, 2017, 2:45 p.m.