A new virtual planning commission is up for next week. Three new items, although two of them have gotten some coverage in local press before.
1.
The plans for CMU's new Scaife Hall. This is a new five-story, 120,000 square foot building on the core of CMU's campus, which will entirely replace the existing, much smaller Scaife Hall. I have to say I find the overall design of the building totally uninspiring - possibly due to to the combination of the typical bland CMU color scheme of beige and silver, and the generic overall composition. Together it makes the building instantly look dated, and be particularly unimpressive in the views directly across the Neville Street chasm, where it's highly visible. I actually like the hardscaped plaza on the campus side however.
2.
A 49-unit condo development on the 2600 block of Penn Avenue in the Strip District. This is the Indovina project on the block with Savoy where the highrise was proposed years ago. The design is very nice, as is typical with Indovina. I notice there's a small retail component on the first floor, which I didn't see before. I like the small "clubhouse" which is put in the rear of the development. The one aspect I don't like is the entire thing is on a parking podium, which means the "backyard" of the condo development is actually one story off the ground, but I understand zoning (and the market) probably require enough parking some sort of podium is needed, and at least they're putting something nice on top of it.
3.
An institutional master plan for West Penn Hospital. They have big plans for the blocks immediately to the east of the hospital, which they have been slowly acquiring (although there are two holdout houses still), including 350,000 square feet of new medical office buildings, 6,000 square feet of additional physical plant and 700 additional structured parking spaces. In addition, they plan to add two additional expansions to the core hospital, one directly on Liberty (additional floors above this wing, or maybe a total replacement?) and a new wing within the central courtyard.
EDIT:
Next Pittsburgh has more on West Penn's master plan.