Lawrenceville Corporation faces leadership changes

A wholesale leadership change is in the works for the Lawrenceville Corporation, the community nonprofit development company that oversees the 16-62 Design Zone program and supports neighborhood development in the city’s Lawrenceville neighborhood.

Kate Trimble, the executive director of the Lawrenceville Corporation since 2004, is moving to Providence, R.I. where her husband has accepted a new job, board president David Serafini informed the organization’s membership by email Thursday.

Neither Trimble nor Serafini could be reached immediately for comment.

Trimble’s move comes on the heels of two other departures from the organization: Kelly Hoffman, the director of real estate, and Jennifer Kent, the business district manager, are both leaving for new opportunities.

Serafini cast the three departures as an unfortunate happenstance.

“It’s a classic case of bad timing, but, in our great Lawrenceville tradition, we are moving forward with great speed and care,” Serafini wrote to the organization’s membership. “Our search committees have been activated to identify ideal applicants who will help take Lawrenceville to the next level and our fiscal strength and stability will allow us to hire talented individuals.”

He added that the organization is in touch with its funders to make sure the transition doesn’t hinder any progress in the community, one of the city’s oldest and largest neighborhoods, spanning three wards in the city’s East End.

During her tenure, Trimble help the organization grow its Design Zone program first launched in 2000, which has helped attract more than 70 design-related businesses into the neighborhood in the last eight years. She also helped to guide Lawrenceville through a master planning process as it prepares for next year’s opening of the new Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in the Penn Avenue site formerly occupied by St. Francis hospital, which closed a few years ago.

Bill Barron, a developer and property owner in Lawrenceville as well as a member of the organization, gave Trimble credit for helping to correct the course of the Lawrenceville Corporation.

“I thought the organization had fallen away from its core values and its mission,” he said. “I think she got it back on track and it was headed in the right direction.”

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