A retired developer is appealing directly to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to commute a sentence — for the former Western Penitentiary.
Tom Tripoli has taken out full-page ads in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette urging Mr. Shapiro to reconsider a decision by the state’s Department of General Services to raze the old North Side prison to clear the way for a possible industrial reuse.
“Could you postpone the demolition and consider opening this property to historic, productive development offers rather than creating another pad ready, languishing, area industrial site?” he asks in one of 10 questions posed to the governor in the ad.
For more than a year, Mr. Tripoli has been pitching a proposal to turn the closed State Correction Institution Pittsburgh, as it is formally known, into a hotel and hostel for travelers while converting the prison yard into a park for recreational vehicles.
It’s one of two alternatives that have surfaced countering the General Services-backed plan. The other would convert the old prison into a tourist attraction similar to the former Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, a hospital for the mentally ill in Weston, W.Va., that closed in 1994.
But so far the state has refused to budge. It notified Paramount last fall that it no longer will be able to film “Mayor of Kingstown” at Western Pen as of November 2025 as it prepares to raze the facility.
That work could start as soon as that month, a General Services spokesman has said.
Consultant Michael Baker International recommended the correctional institution’s demolition in a feasibility study issued in 2023. It proposed tearing down all 42 buildings on the grounds, including the main penitentiary, at a cost of $44.4 million.
The Department of General Services has said that it expects demolition and site work remediation work to be completed in 2027. At that point, it intends to sell the property.
But that hasn’t stopped Mr. Tripoli from trying to get the governor’s ear on the matter. He said Thursday he has already sent him four certified letters trying to bring his attention to the prison’s plight.
When he got no response, he decided to launch the ad campaign. In the ad, Mr. Tripoli pointed out, in the form of a question to Mr. Shapiro, that filming alone at the site has pumped more than $100 million into the local economy.
Both he and Anthony Jordan, the developer behind the other alternative plan for the prison, have pledged to keep the filming rolling.
“I believe that if he read the information, he would support it,” Mr. Tripoli said of the governor. “He’s an intelligent guy and a good business person from what I understand.”
Mr. Tripoli has dubbed his campaign “Save the Castle.” In the ad, he urged supporters interested in salvaging Western Pen to sign a petition. That has gained him several hundred more signatures beyond the thousand plus he already had.
“I’ve gotten a lot of positive remarks from people on the plan. I just hope the people that are in charge would pay as much attention as common, ordinary area residents and citizens,” he said.
The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
In his ad, Mr. Tripoli asked Mr. Shapiro if he can see how making the prison an attraction “will further support your state-funded campaign — ‘Pennsylvania, The Great American Getaway,’ to grow tourism in Pittsburgh?”
“Since the state funds a program to attract the film business, would you not want Paramount and others to stay and film at the new proposed West Penn Castle?” he inquired.
“Would you endorse repurposing this historic site into a tourism project that would attract thousands of new, previously unserved RV and budget minded tourists into Pittsburgh to enhance jobs and support businesses?”
Even as the Department of General Services mulled plans for the prison’s demolition, Mr. Shapiro in February announced a $27 million film tax credit for “Mayor of Kingstown.” At the time, the state estimated that the production had created more than 3,000 new jobs and pumped more than $90 million into the region’s economy.
Mr. Tripoli’s ad ends by asking Mr. Shapiro to review his proposal at www.savethecastlepgh.org, to respond to the 10 questions, and to “consider the existing and potential benefits of repurposing the former [prison] site by opening it to historic development proposals.”
The state Department of General Services isn’t the only one in favor of demolishing SCI Pittsburgh.
Jake Wheatley, chief of staff to Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, said in November that the city supports the Michael Baker recommendations in terms of razing the buildings and making the site development ready.
He added that former Gov. Tom Wolf, in closing the prison in 2017, had committed to a strategy of making the site an employment center and getting back on the tax rolls. Gov. Shapiro, he said, has upheld that commitment.
Mr. Wheatley also rejected the idea of turning Western Pen into a tourist attraction. “We want something that’s going to employ people and have long-lasting impacts on the community,” he said at the time.
Despite the high-powered opposition and the cold shoulder from the governor so far, Mr. Tripoli said he’s not ready to give up his fight.
“I’m a diehard. I will keep trying until I’m told that it’s not going to happen or that it will happen,” he said.
First Published: January 3, 2025, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: January 4, 2025, 4:15 p.m.
