Page created by: Jamie Beck

James Ross Aiello, Sr., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, passed away peacefully at home after a decades-long battle with Parkinson’s Disease on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 6th, 2021. He was born to parents Rosario and Regina (nee Locante) Aiello on April 21, 1939. A student athlete in high school and college, he played football for Tulane University, where he graduated in 1961. Jim’s first job after college was at his grandparents’ Italian restaurant, Locante’s, which fed a lifelong love affair with food and the restaurant industry. He went on to open several of his own during his lifetime (the original Rico’s on West Liberty Ave., Jamie’s Upper Crust, Le Peep, and Sorriso). In his later twenties, Jim embarked on a successful and innovative career as an investment banker, instrumental in creating what became the national and tax-free bond financing alternative to the then traditional mortgages used to build shopping centers. A visionary, Jim was responsible for some of the Pittsburgh area’s biggest developments in the 1980s and early 1990s, including the Cherrington Golf Club and residential community, The Bourse Shops and office condominiums, and Rossi's Pop-Up market in North Versailles, as well as dozens of big box projects and strip centers around the country. Those projects stand as a testament to his lifelong commitment to hard-work and creativity.
Jim is survived by his wife, Lisa Aiello (nee Gimigliano), his daughter Jamie (Brad) Aiello Beck of New Canaan, CT, his son, James R. Aiello, Jr. of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, FL, his two grandchildren, Kayla and Ford Beck, his sister, Frances (Scott) Webster, his nephews, Scott T. Webster, Jr. (Monica) of New Canaan, CT, and Jeffrey Webster (Meghan), of Charleston, SC, his stepchildren, Michelle Jenkins, Trey Jenkins (Josie), and Shayla Jenkins, his step-granddaughter, Genevieve Jenkins, and other extended family and friends