Butler St. Lofts in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood will be the home and offices of GeekWire HQ2 during our month long stay in Steel City. (Photo via Butler St. Lofts)

There’s already been a lot of buzz this week about HQ2. But Amazon is not the only Seattle upstart that’s making waves with a second headquarters.

Here at GeekWire, we’re donning winter jackets, unfurling long underwear and unpacking winterized boots as we get ready to embark on a fun journalistic adventure. We’ve decided to set up a temporary second headquarters in Pittsburgh for the month of February, exploring everything that this up-and-coming innovation hub has to offer.

Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve chosen our temporary home in Steel City — our very own HQ2, if you will — at Butler St. Lofts. The  newly-renovated co-working and residential space — located in a former Boys’ and Girls Club in Pittsburgh’s vibrant Lawrenceville neighborhood — will serve as our home for about five weeks starting Jan. 27th.

We’re thrilled to land in the heart of Pittsburgh, and are ready to start telling stories about the economic renaissance of this proud Rust Belt city. Look for ongoing coverage starting next week.

A team of GeekWire editors and reporters will be housed at Butler Street Lofts, and we’ll also set up temporary offices in the first floor co-working space of the building, operated by Pittsburgh’s Beauty Shoppe co-working company, We plan to make this our nerve center during our stay in Pittsburgh, conducting interviews from the space, hosting on-location videos and turning out top-notch content about a tech city that’s in the midst of competing for Amazon’s 50,000 jobs.

“We are ecstatic GeekWire’s visiting Pittsburgh and chose Beauty Shoppe as its home,” said Matthew Ciccone, CEO of Beauty Shoppe. “We looking forward to hosting them, and introducing them to the city.”

And we’re getting excited to learn more about our temporary home, and consuming a few Primanti Bros. sandwiches and sipping a few pale ales at The Church Brew Works.

Inside Butler Street Lofts.

In addition to our new HQ2 location, we’re also excited to announce that two sponsors have come on board to support our Pittsburgh HQ2 effort: K&L Gates and DQE Communications. Both K&L Gates and DQE Communications are firmly rooted in Pittsburgh’s history, and are part of its ongoing transformation. We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome them as our exclusive sponsors on this unique project.

Since announcing the formal RFP process for GeekWire HQ2 just over three months ago (see full details here), we’ve been inundated with inquires from government agencies, media, educational institutions, tech firms and other curiosity seekers wondering what the concept is all about. Next week, we will start introducing our editorial coverage with walk-up stories about Pittsburgh’s rebirth, as well as short profiles of individuals with strong ties to the community.

You can follow all of our upcoming coverage of Pittsburgh — from the innovative robotics labs of Carnegie Mellon University to the redevelopment of old steel mills at Hazelwood Green to the self-driving testing areas of Uber — here. If you have tips, story ideas or offbeat geeky recommendations, please email them to us at hq2@geekwire.com.

We can’t wait to arrive at our new home at Butler Street Lofts, and kick off a month of exploration and on-the-scene reporting. And, who knows, with Pittsburgh making the top 20 finalists for Amazon HQ2, we might be blazing a trail for our much bigger neighbor here in Seattle.

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