PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[BrianTH]

I'm as guilty of this as anyone, but it is interesting to me that a 235-unit apartment project moving forward Downtown no longer draws much of a reaction. When those units are filled that is going to be another significant increase in the local night and weekend population, and those new residents will likely do things like dine out more than typical. So that means more support for more businesses to be open more hours on nights and weekends. And this is just one project among many known to be moving forward, with likely many more to be announced in coming years.

So on the one hand it is understandable that any given project is no longer big news, but I still wonder if even relatively knowledgeable and optimistic folks are fully anticipating how much more change we could see in the Downtown scene in the next decade or so.

[photoLith]

So what can we do to help ensure those facades get preserved, we must do something about it. I've already contacted all of pittsburghs preservation organizations to find out what they are doing to prevent this. I would like to organize opposition to these plans, so if anyone wants to do something about this, we should organize.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by photoLith

So what can we do to help ensure those facades get preserved, we must do something about it. I've already contacted all of pittsburghs preservation organizations to find out what they are doing to prevent this. I would like to organize opposition to these plans, so if anyone wants to do something about this, we should organize.

Chain yourself to the front door.

[East Edge]

Sadly the issue is that there simply aren't enough incentives available to keep facades / work with historical buildings. We all know its the right thing to do but those who aren't as passionate about history, or architecture just look at the bottom line. I see this all of the time at the neighborhood level in districts that have great architectural assets and some "developer" comes along and thinks, "what a strong market...I think i'll buy these buildings and tear them down and build a new one so i dont have to think ti hard about to creatively re purpose the building and deal with century old construction that i dont know anything about" The only thing to my knowledge that a developer has at their disposal is the URA facade programs but they only add up to a maximum of $30K which is chump change when your talking multi million dollar projects. There are some historic tax credits but they are cumbersome and tax credits arent going for they used to. I am sure there are some other programs out there but they arent easily found, they're competitive, and at the end of the day simply not enough to justify the time involved coordinating complicated financing. If there could be a more user friendly, comprehensive historic preservation funding program that is made widely available then i think we would see alot more preserved facades in the city. Something tells me if a smaller non profit university like point park had financial incentive to keep the facades they would work a little harder to keep them intact. Same goes for bunchier, oxford, neighborhood developers, etc.

[Jonboy1983]

Man, with this discussion continuing, consider my latest blog post. I talk about how a developer was able to incorporate the facades of early 1800s architecture into their 45-story condominium tower in Philadelphia after responding to public and preservationist opposition. Familiar with The Saint James? Check out my latest update:
http://urbandesigneggshell.blogspot.com/2013/07/facade-preservation-saint-james-in.html

For more information on the facade preservation, click here:
http://www.preservationalliance.com/news/news-psfs.php

[Wheelingman04]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Agreed on both points.

We can afford to be picky now. We are no longer a frail, desperate Rust Belt city. We must demand high-quality development that maximizes the opportunity of a site.

The reason everyone complains about this particular block being so "dormant"... is because Point Park University bought up the block five years ago, quickly evicted the tenants, and has been sitting on the vacant properties ever since... covering the ornate architecture with lame banners advertising the university.

Over time... as the rest of Downtown charged forward with its transformation, Point Park University sat idle... eliminating some of the most attractive components of its plan. Now we find out that the university had no intention of adaptive reuse of the historic structures on this block.

We Pittsburghers must demand better. If a not-for-profit university is gonna take block after block of precious Downtown real estate off the tax rolls... we must encourage them to strive for the highest standard in urban design and external benefits for the community.

I agree 100% with that assessment!

[Wheelingman04]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I completely disagree. If you are going to start with a clean 40,000 sqft parcel in the middle of Downtown, you should be thinking along the lines of PNC Tower or the Oxford Tower. If you just want to build a cute little six-story building, you should be looking out in places like the Baum-Centre corridor or East Liberty (and I think that might even be seen as a waste in East Liberty in coming decades, but for now that would be zoning-appropriate).



Eventually that might be viable, but right now parking is already in short supply in the core of Downtown. So you'd somehow have to replace all that parking (I guess by digging way underground), which would add a great deal to the cost.

Again, I just don't get why that would make sense compared to using an available large parcel for a large building without the need to replace all that parking.

I agree. Building a 6 story building downtown makes no sense whatsoever.

[GeneW]

Panel backs Pittsburgh terminal's historic status

The Strip District's historic produce terminal has survived a first round before the city's Historic Review Commission intact.

In a 3-0 vote, with one abstention, the commission gave preliminary approval Wednesday to the terminal's nomination as a city historic structure.

The decision deals a blow to the plans of the Buncher Co., which wants to demolish 535 feet of the five-block-long terminal on Smallman Street as part of a $400 million residential and office development on the Allegheny riverfront.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/loca...ls-historic-status-694992/#ixzz2YkH6Dogc

[photoLith]

Fucking sweet!!! That's great news for a change.

[BrianTH]

Reading between the lines, I'd guess the HRC would likely approve a proposal to cut portals through the Produce Terminal provided they made a real effort to maintain the overall continuity of the building, ala the Pfaffmann plans we previously noted:



I honestly don't see how you can make a good faith argument that would be worse in terms of access to the riverfront parcels, and if anything it could be better (if you cut at least a couple of them rather than just one at 17th).

[BrianTH]

Apparently this is a downloadable copy of the presentation that Point Park made:

https://www.yousendit.com/dl?phi_action=...%2526batch_id%253DbWJvclVERndZY1RtcXRVag

There is really nothing to it that we haven't seen and discussed before. I do think it helps demonstrate that if you want to do something big that would join together the two surface parking lots, you need to do something about the disputed buildings. However, it does not provide any more detail about their actual plans for the Playhouse (aside from the first floor layout we have already seen), nor explain why the facades could not be preserved in situ, nor provide any information at all about what recycling the demolished facades' materials would mean, or so on.

Just on a pure process level, the Planning Commission should deny their request to demolish the buildings if this is all the hard information they are getting--they are simply asking the Planning Commission to take way too much on faith. Of course I also think the Planning Commission should ultimately insist on keeping the facades in situ, and in fact they should likely insist on a larger scale to the overall project. Again, there is no sense approving the assembly of such a large parcel if it is just going to be wasted on a too-small building.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Reading between the lines, I'd guess the HRC would likely approve a proposal to cut portals through the Produce Terminal provided they made a real effort to maintain the overall continuity of the building, ala the Pfaffmann plans we previously noted:



I honestly don't see how you can make a good faith argument that would be worse in terms of access to the riverfront parcels, and if anything it could be better (if you cut at least a couple of them rather than just one at 17th).

I'm fine with a plan of just cutting portals into the building, I just couldn't understand how they needed to chop 535 feet off the building to accommodate traffic.

[photoLith]

That PDF shows the playhouse footprint also taking up along with the three buildings, about 4 others. They don't plan on tearing down 4 other buildings do they? I'm confused by that PDF.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by photoLith

That PDF shows the playhouse footprint also taking up along with the three buildings, about 4 others. They don't plan on tearing down 4 other buildings do they? I'm confused by that PDF.

They are planning to tie the Playhouse in with an existing complex called University Center (that's all the stuff on the western end), and also one more building along Fourth.

[DKNewYork]

Originally Posted by GeneW

I'm fine with a plan of just cutting portals into the building, I just couldn't understand how they needed to chop 535 feet off the building to accommodate traffic.

I agree with your puzzlement about the stated need to chop off the entire western end of the terminal.

This issue vexes me. I would prefer the terminal to be renovated as is. I get that improved river access might be necessary. However, I would be more comfortable making any compromise on the terminal if Buncher were proposing a better, more urban development.

The current proposal to chop off the western end is overly-severe, though it does leave untouched (and ostensibly renovated/restored) the eastern, original portion of the produce terminal.

The alternative plan, to provide numerous portals, does harm the original terminal but might work better in terms of traffic flow and I like that the Buncher parcel would be more tied to the Strip's street grid. And the overall length of the terminal would be maintained with the portals.

Has a rationale been offered why the entire western portion must be sacrificed for the 17th St gateway? Could a portal be created at 17th such as proposed in the alternative plan?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

Has a rationale been offered why the entire western portion must be sacrificed for the 17th St gateway? Could a portal be created at 17th such as proposed in the alternative plan?

If you look at their preliminary plan, cutting off the Terminal at 17th gives them a place to stick one more big new building (tentatively slated for office), between the planned new 17th Street Plaza and 16th Street Bridge.

So you can see why they have a financial interest in going that way. To my knowledge, though, they have never specifically explained why a portal plan wouldn't work in terms of providing access to the remainder of the development site.

[DKNewYork]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

If you look at their preliminary plan, cutting off the Terminal at 17th gives them a place to stick one more big new building (tentatively slated for office), between the planned new 17th Street Plaza and 16th Street Bridge.

So you can see why they have a financial interest in going that way. To my knowledge, though, they have never specifically explained why a portal plan wouldn't work in terms of providing access to the remainder of the development site.

So they weren't even trying to disguise their true aim, which is to provide yet more open space for their suburban development? If they claim that the remaining, eastern portion can be renovated for retail/office/residential, then why not the western third as well? I am coming around to the idea of two or three "cuts" in the building to bring the street grid north. This would preserve the total length of the terminal, which is what gives it such impact. But my opinions are still evolving.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

So they weren't even trying to disguise their true aim, which is to provide yet more open space for their suburban development?

As an aside, this is the preliminary proposal for Zone C (Zone C is what is created by cutting off the Produce Terminal at 17th Street):



I'm not thrilled with the big setback from Smallman and the possibility of a big setback from 17th Street as well. And if they only built at the minimum of 4 stories, "suburban" would be quite right. On the other hand, even with the setbacks, if they built close to the maximum of 20 stories, that would be pretty "urban" instead.

And it is hard for me not to think this sounds an awful lot like the Playhouse discussion--destroying historic structures for a 20-story building represents an issue worthy of discussion, whereas doing it for a lowrise building is very hard to justify.

I am coming around to the idea of two or three "cuts" in the building to bring the street grid north. This would preserve the total length of the terminal, which is what gives it such impact. But my opinions are still evolving.

I certainly think the HRC was hinting they were on the same page as you. Again, you lose one building site, with up to a 20-story building (which is nothing to sneeze at), but you do the most possible to preserve what makes the Terminal distinctive while still allowing riverfront access from Smallman.

Incidentally, I've long maintained that the single biggest issue with the Buncher plan on this side of the 16th Street Bridge is the height of the buildings, with the plan specifying that the ones along the river could be anywhere from 4 to 15 stories, and this one on Smallman being anywhere from 4 to 20.

This is purely hypothetical, but suppose Buncher would have ended up wanting to build an 8-story building in Zone C and a 7-story building in Zone D (Zone D is also between the bridge and the new plaza but along the river). In principle, if barred from building in Zone C because they can't pull down that part of the Terminal, they could just build a 15-story building in Zone D instead, resulting in the same total addition of new space.

The point of that mental exercise is that when viewing the development as a whole, you really shouldn't be limiting the overall intensity of land use by denying Buncher the use of Zone C unless all the other parcels would already be built at or close to their maximum height. Which would be a great problem to have.

[The sun]

The site has been barricaded.

[photoLith]

It's about time that lot got developed. It's been a bare strip of ground ever since I moved here.