The Commonwealth Court ruling vacated a decision by a Common Pleas Court judge to allow immediate removal of the box covering the statue on Marconi Plaza.
Mayor Bill Peduto said the work “can be better displayed in a private location that places Columbus, his memory and his history in different context.”
Calls to remove Pittsburgh’s Columbus statue date at least to the 1990s.
More than a dozen U.S. cities have recently unseated their own statues honoring the Genovese explorer. Protesters have pulled down many more.
The vote marks the second-to-last procedural hurdle for Mayor Jim Kenney’s proposal to remove the Marconi Plaza icon.
President Trump vowed via Twitter on Tuesday morning that anyone who vandalizes “any monument, statue or other such federal property” will be arrested and face up to 10 years in prison, citing a little-known 2003 piece of legislation.