"Much has been done, and there's still much to do, but Point Park University is acquitting itself well in its ambition to transform its corner of Downtown.

Though small -- the private university has just 4,000 students -- it is enlivening and preserving parts of six city blocks that include some of Downtown's most remarkable turn-of-the-century architecture.

This neighborhood was once the financial center of Pittsburgh. It was the city's equivalent of Wall Street -- and it comprises two score or more old banks, office towers and commercial buildings dating to the era when Pittsburgh's banks held more money than those in any city other than New York.

Point Park calls its $244 million, 10-year project the "Academic Village," stressing the idea that it's expanding in discrete pieces in a way that fits in well with the existing fabric of the city. It has spread out along the neighborhood's streets mostly by imaginatively re-purposing, remodeling and, in some cases, restoring architecturally rich older buildings."

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