In the last 30 years, Pittsburgh has reinvented itself by invigorating its use of the riverfronts. Now a new opportunity beckons in a partnership with the Buncher Co.

By teaming up with the real estate firm, the city has a chance to unlock more dormant, yet desirable, waterfront property, this time on the Allegheny River. But the development must be carefully planned and executed -- by private interests and the city's Urban Redevelopment Authority -- if it's to be a success.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl recently sketched out the potential, which involves 80 noncontiguous acres scattered along 6.5 miles between the Strip District and Highland Park. Two of the sites, the historic produce terminal on Smallman Street in the Strip and the 22-acre former Tippins International tract at 62nd Street -- are owned by the URA. The others are held by Buncher.

The work of the public-private partnership would unfold over years, perhaps decades. Like recent riverfront projects -- Station Square, the North Shore, the SouthSide Works and The Waterfront -- this proposal would transform the properties for a variety of new uses, including housing, commercial ventures and light industry. It would be a magnet for people and businesses and would generate an estimated 5,000 new jobs and $6 million in new tax revenue.

All of that would require $20.5 million in roads, water and sewer lines and sidewalks funded by local, state and federal development funds and tax increment financing. The private partners would come up with the hundreds of millions needed for construction of the buildings.

The first focus of activity is likely to be in the 40 undeveloped acres in the Strip District between the produce terminal and the river, where Buncher would like to build 1,000 units of housing. That development, which the URA estimates at $205 million, could get rolling in 2013.

URA officials are concerned, however, about negatives posed for the anticipated residential neighborhood by the long, skinny terminal: trash, truck traffic and the building's five-block length, which would act as a barrier to new residents who'd want to walk to Strip District merchants.

It would be too easy to say that the URA, as landlord, should move the wholesale dealers out of the terminal and convert the space for a different use. But the dealers' operations are an important part of the Strip, since they serve produce retailers both there and throughout the region. The handful of merchants in the terminal, whose leases run until at least 2012 and whose payrolls account for 175 jobs, like their location and their proximity to each other.

This is not to say, however, that they could not do just as well nearby. In fact, similar businesses function successfully at other locations in the Strip District. While some city officials are coy about what is likely to happen to the terminal's dealers, URA Executive Director Rob Stephany is more frank. On Tuesday he told the Post-Gazette editorial board that "I don't think the produce distributors have to be tied to this building." He did say, however, that the URA wants to figure out a solution.

That is the key to moving forward.

We can see two workable scenarios. The first leaves the wholesalers in the terminal, develops unused parts of it for retail, makes pedestrian cut-throughs in the building and screens off trucks and trash from the new neighborhood by using trees and other landscaping. The other possibility is the URA presents the wholesalers with a range of options for relocation to a nearby setting that will be more attractive, and perhaps more lucrative, than the terminal.

The promise of riverfront development is too great and the success of the Strip District is too important for the city not to reach an accommodation on the produce terminal. Pittsburgh wants more waterside living, but it needs produce sellers, too. Finding a way for both to coexist should not be difficult.

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