African Queens Apartments Under Construction on Centre Avenue

African Queens Apartments is under construction at 2159 Centre Avenue in the Hill District. The 4-story, 18,000-square-foot mixed-use building will contain 12 affordable apartments. Kingdom Rising Holdings LLC is developing the project, which broke ground May 16, 2025.

All 12 units target households at or below 30 percent of area median income. Six are reserved for people with special needs or those experiencing homelessness. The building includes roughly 1,700 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. Total development cost is approximately $8 million.

The financing stack includes an $840,000 URA Rental Gap Program loan, a $900,000 PHFA Housing Options Grant, and $1 million in gap financing plus 12 project-based vouchers from the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh. Neighborhood Allies has invested $365,000 since 2019. In March 2026, the project received $250,000 from the Greater Hill District Neighborhood Reinvestment Fund Development Initiatives Program. The URA's Avenues of Hope Initiative also provided funding.

The project is named for the former African Queens Record store that once occupied the site. It sits adjacent to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's Hill District branch.