As Seen In

Growth by design Roberta Weissburg looks to SouthSide Works to duplicate success of Shadyside shop Friday, January 7, 2005

By Tim Schooley, Pittsburgh Business Times

As the daughter of a one-armed dentist, Roberta Weissburg learned early on that you often have to work hard not just to succeed, but to survive.

Even though her father had a stroke when she was just 10 months old, he battled back after losing the use of one arm to return to dentistry and his practice in New Kensington. Her mother served as his assistant.

"It was nice to have your parents drill your teeth," she said, laughing. "I'll be good;' she added, reliving the mock horror of being a young girl in a dentist chair, loomed over by her own mother and father.

A Pittsburgh native who grew up with a handful of city neighborhood businesses in her family, Ms. Weissburg is making a major leap for an independent retailer. She's opening a new Roberta Weissburg Leathers store at the burgeoning SouthSide Works project, as she maintains her well-established store in city's tony Walnut Street business district.

Ms. Weissburg is well aware of the risk in trying to duplicate the success of her Shadyside store.

"I've lived on a shoestring before," she said. "I've worked seven days a week I'm not afraid of that at all: I'll do what it takes."

So far, she is the only local, independent retailer to commit to both retail corridors, meaning both her stores will be established in the kind of high-rent retail districts that usually only national chains can afford.

Ms. Weissburg won't predict how well the new store will do. "I have no idea what to expect;' she said. "I really don't."

BLAZING A TRAIL:

Roberta Weissburg Leathers' expansion to SouthSide Works makes it the first independent, local retailer to take space in two of the city's highest-profile and high-rent districts. The South Side is where owner Roberta Weissburg got her start, more than 20 years ago.

PBT DOSSIER

Roberta Weissburg, Owner, Roberta Weissburg Leathers, a specialty store featuring her handmade custom designs, along with designer labels
Age: 51
Residence: South Side
Family: husband, Richard Fox
Web site: www.robertaweissburgleathers.com

FINDING HER CALLING

Ms. Weissburg never expected to be doing what she's doing.

In the 1970s, she was a Ph.D. candidate in the English department at the University of Pittsburgh. But when two professors close to her were denied tenure, she suddenly found herself alienated from the career calling she'd chosen and decided to bail out of the program.

"I felt like what I was doing was irrelevant," she said. "No one in my class knew who Bob Dylan was. I felt like I was on another planet."

Not knowing what to do with herself after years of education, Ms. Weissburg followed her brother's simple advice to find a job and do it the best she could.

That job was with a local goldsmith, where she took up making scrimshaws - highly detailed artistic renderings drawn on pieces of leather. Ms. Weissburg's scrimshaws became popular enough that the goldsmith sold everything she made, she recalled.

Soon after, Ms. Weissburg committed herself fully to designing and making handcrafted leather wear. Along with displaying her work at events such as the Three Rivers Arts Festival, Ms. Weissburg became involved with the local artisan movement.

"I did a lot of the work with my own hands and really loved it," she said.

She's become well known for her custom leather designs. When "Silence of the Lambs" was in production in Pittsburgh, Ms. Weissburg designed some of the costumes for the film. Recently, sideline reporter Leslie Visser wore a new Roberta Weissburg coat during a national Monday night Steelers broadcast.

Ms. Weissburg's opening at SouthSide Works is a return of sorts to her roots. The city's South Side is where she got her start in business, operating a store there from the early 1980s until 1999.

She initially bought a building on 13th Street and opened her own shop below the apartment where she still lives. The storefront is now an architect's office. Ms. Weissburg closed her South Side shop because the Carson Street business district, at the time, didn't attract the kind of upscale retail traffic her store needed, and found, in Shadyside.

But now she believes SouthSide Works, with its mix of higher-end stores and restaurants, could draw more of that kind of customer to the neighborhood, as well as help her pull back in South Hills customers lost after she moved her store to the East End.

Her new store will be nestled on a street that also includes a Kenneth Cole store, a much-anticipated BCBG, a Los Angeles-based women's fashion retailer, and Z Gallerie, a home furnishings store.

"(Roberta Weissburg) truly has a 'pulse' on what is happening," said Damian Soffer, of the Soffer Organization, developer of the SouthSide Works. "She has the knowledge and style that has made her successful for the last 20-plus years. That is why she is part of the development."

LOCAL ROOTS

Ms. Weissburg has roots in both neighborhoods where she'll now have a retail presence, as well as several other city enclaves. She was an early leader of the South Side Local Development Co. and helped to found the former South Side Summer Street Spectacular.

She's also been active in the Shadyside Chamber of Commerce. In addition, Ms. Weissburg grew up in Squirrel Hill and went to high school at Taylor Allderdice, spent a good part of her time in Shadyside as a kid, helped in her grandfather's North Side jewelry store and has memories of her aunt and uncle's Miller furniture store on the South Side.

"She's a dynamic businesswoman and a great community person," said Harry Levine, an architect who is finishing his term as president of the Shadyside Chamber of Commerce. "She knows a lot. She has a good and deep experience in both neighborhoods."

As she goes back into business in the neighborhood where she first started, Ms. Weissburg said she'll keep things in perspective.

"The (business) issues are still pretty much the same issues;' she said. "There's just more zeros added on now."

MR. SCHOOLEY may be contacted at tschooley@bizjournals.com.

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