Local Lighting Company Lights Historic Bridge

Pittsburgh, PA — Forum, Inc., a Pittsburgh-based lighting fixture manufacturer collaborated with several local groups to design, engineer and manufacture the Roberto Clemente Bridge custom lighting. The Roberto Clemente Bridge, formerly known as the Sixth Street Bridge, had its official lighting premier Thursday, November 21, 2002. The Bridge lights and a spectacular fireworks display illuminated the night sky and Allegheny River on the eve of Pittsburgh’s annual Light Up Night, marking the start of the holiday shopping season.

Forum was a natural choice for the project, with over five years experience working with state-of-the-art LED lighting. Pittsburgh-based Forum recently completed Amtrak’s high-speed rail platform lighting for the northeast corridor, and is one of the few manufacturers locally working with the high-performance, high-quality LED light source. Duquesne Light Co., who provided the funding to devise and install the wiring and lighting fixtures for the Bridge — including a $50,000 endowment to maintain the fixtures and defray the electricity costs — has been working with Forum and local groups to focus on illuminating downtown Pittsburgh’s Roberto Clemente Bridge. The master plan to light several downtown Pittsburgh bridges is one that will be realized once sponsors can be found to underwrite each of the bridge projects.

Forum Senior Vice President, Paula Garret, considers the 18-month project “a real feather in the cap of Pittsburgh’s lighting community. That such a prominent landmark bears the work of one of the city’s own lighting companies, we at Forum are pleased to collaborate with civic groups on a local level and to engineer and manufacture the high technology LED lighting that we’ve used for projects throughout the country.” Garret adds, “bridges and light move and connect people … it was our vision to do just that in Pittsburgh with our lighting technology — to move and connect people.”

Spanning the Allegheny River between downtown and the North Shore, the Clemente Bridge lighting design needed to be practical and functional, as well as preserve the historical integrity of the Bridge’s original structure. Forum developed an architectural lighting design that works in line with the Bridge’s historic past, conforms to the group’s vision to illuminate the Bridge in a tasteful way, and creates a baseline for future bridge lighting collaborations. Custom housing for the 74 LED lighting fixtures provide 100,000 hours of output, a strategic decision made for optimal functionality. “We needed to set a precedence with this project, and we wanted to show Pittsburgh what we can do and how we do it at Forum Lighting” said Garret.

Forum, Inc. is an independently owned and operated lighting fixture manufacturer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1963, Forum’s staff of engineers, lighting fixture designers and application engineers have designed, engineered and manufactured lighting solutions for local and national business clients.