http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07319/834028-52.stm
URA in final review of plans for North Side corridor
Thursday, November 15, 2007
By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Urban Redevelopment Authority is close to finishing a review of its A-list of proposals for development of the North Side's Federal Street-North Avenue corridor.
Two of five proposals would focus on the Garden Theater as part of a larger vision for the block, and one covets only the theater, the last nickelodeon-style specimen in the city with an intact interior and one of the last in the country.
The theater is considered by some to be the linchpin in the success of the corridor. Craig Dunham, a principal at the Rubinoff Co., said he would want to get the theater up and running first, "as the anchor" to generate leverage for other buildings.
The URA requested proposals in the spring for a dozen blighted properties. Kyra Straussman, the URA's director of real estate, said the board will be told of a decision at its meeting next month.
A final feasibility review is ongoing, she said. Parties will be called in for a final round of questioning after that, she said.
A committee that included neighborhood residents has studied the plans and interviewed the developers in recent months.
"We were looking at proposals from experienced groups and people who just have a real heart for the neighborhood, and we were intrigued by both," Ms. Straussman said. Among them are large and small pieces, "and we're looking at ways to partner up some of these."
The authority is also helping former Steeler Franco Harris with his interest in transforming a small building on the north-east corner into a restaurant, she said.
A large building on North Avenue sustained extensive fire damage years ago and will likely be razed, she said. Otherwise, the plan has been to save the structures. Most date to the 19th century.
The Garden was built in 1915 with terra cotta detailing and a copper canopy, which has not survived. It was a first-run movie house before it became a — theater in 1972. The URA bought and closed it in February amid news that a new plan for housing and a Carnegie Library branch would be coming in the future to Federal.
Rebecca Davidson-Wagner, project development specialist for the URA, said all 12 buildings were addressed in the proposals, some as part of large proposals, a few as individual, small ventures.
Mr. Dunham said a multi-building plan is "extraordinary challenging. The buildings are in terrible shape and the neighborhood is definitely transitional. It's going to require lots of capital investment just to get to the point where they are useful."
For this reason, one suitor may seem a long shot, but his vision got the URA neighborhood committee's nod for consideration.
Aaron Stubna, a barber from Bellevue who has studied filmmaking, seeks only the theater. He is trying to form a board to run a nonprofit 350-seat movie theater and live-music venue that would occupy most of the main floor. An art gallery would be the other piece, and a wine bar would fill one of two small storefronts within the building.
"I'm a 36-year-old with a fresh idea," said Mr. Stubna, who estimated needing $1.2 million to develop the Garden, adding, "My partner is doing the construction at cost."
He foresees combining some movie nights with a pre-movie concert in the theater.
"A ton of people with talent are dying for stage time," he said. "It would be maybe 15 minutes before a 7:30 movie."
The movie theater in his plan also would serve as an after-school training venue for neighborhood children to learn how to make movies.
The Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation wants to guide its art-related vision of the entire block, said its president, Arthur Ziegler.
"We feel the entire block [that includes the Garden] should be one project," he said. "We see it as a place for film, lectures and other events, with some of the overflow from the Hazlett [Theater].
"We would like to unite the theater and the Masonic Hall in some synergistic way."
Mr. Dunham, who said he had no price tag yet, put together an all-star team that includes loft developer Eve Picker; Sara Radelet, director of the New Hazlett Theater; Charlie Humphrey, the director of Pittsburgh Filmmakers; architect Rob Pfaffmann and Ernie Sota, a developer of green buildings.
"We'd like to have people working there, living there, singing and dancing and showing movies there," Mr. Dunham said of the Garden. "Performance venues are becoming transformative elements within communities.
"We want to do the whole block. We think it has a synergy that would allow for a higher level investment. But not today."
Diana Nelson Jones can be reached at
[email protected] or 412-263-1626.
...
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07319/834056-53.stm
After years of neglect, house to get makeover by hospital
Thursday, November 15, 2007
By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette
Allegheny General Hospital will spend $2 million to renovate the former Aeberli building on the North Side.Allegheny General Hospital yesterday announced plans to restore the Aeberli building, a property that many North Siders had given up hope for after years of pleading on its behalf.
As a grand period structure anchoring a key corner across from the hospital, its survival was a neighborhood cause that got snagged in the financial disaster of the Allegheny Health, Education and Research Foundation. After a titanic expansion through the 1990s, AHERF capsized in 1998, and the resultant bankruptcy left the hospital "without funds to invest" in the Aeberli, said hospital spokesman Tom Chakurda.
The hospital has owned the former house-turned-funeral-home on North Avenue and Sandusky Street since the mid-1970s. It was two row homes joined in the 1920s by a wrap-around porch.
In 2000, the Mexican War Streets Society spared it from the wrecking ball by securing historic designation from the city, but by then, trees were growing from the gutters and part of the roof had fallen into the basement.
"It was such a degrading thing to see it like that, especially when such a large entity owned it," said David McMunn, a board member of the Mexican War Streets Society and the Central Northside Neighborhood Council.
He said various neighborhood groups united to prevail upon the hospital in an October letter.
Exterior renovation is expected to begin this month, said hospital spokesman Dan Laurent.
The entire renovation is estimated to cost $2.5 million, with some first-phase funding from the Richard King Mellon Foundation. Many period details will be saved or restored, including railings, doors, window hardware and moldings.
The hospital may use the building for administrative offices and possibly retail space, such as a coffee shop, said Mr. Laurent.
Built during the Civil War in the Second Empire style, it got its name when William Aeberli bought it in 1909. It was the family home, and then its funeral home business for most of that century.
"Renovation of the Aeberli building is a significant investment in the future of this community and another tangible expression of AGH's deep and long-standing commitment to the North Side's vitality and progress," said Connie Cibrone, AGH president and chief executive officer.
Some of the building's value is attached to its location, said Ellis Schmidlapp, the principal architect on the first phase.
"A corner property is always a bit more significant than ones inside, and porches provide visual interest," he said.
The restoration will give each of the homes its own porch. The Second Empire half will keep its wrap-around porch and the mate will get to keep the brick pillars and heavier cornice, he said.
Diana Nelson Jones can be reached at
[email protected] or 412-263-1626.
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