PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by doo dah

Preliminary vote on Pittsburgh's produce terminal nixes historic designation

Seems OK to me. Of course that is assuming, as reported, that both the Peduto Administration and Buncher are working in good faith to come up with an alternative, and that this process didn't depend on the threat of designation.

[DKNewYork]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Seems OK to me. Of course that is assuming, as reported, that both the Peduto Administration and Buncher are working in good faith to come up with an alternative, and that this process didn't depend on the threat of designation.

It would be great if Buncher and the Peduto administration can establish a good working relationship but the key, to me, is that these two or three developers mentioned by Peduto show some real interest in the Produce Terminal...and that one of them actually take on the project. I am told that Buncher is quite convinced that its analysis of the Produce Terminal's financials is accurate in terms of amount of money that is needed to renovate and the amount of subsidy that the building will need each year. So there is probably limited room for negotiation. If the mayor can get another developer to "appropriately" restore the Produce Terminal, Buncher can relinquish the purchase option and walk away knowing that Terminal will be revived in a manner that will compliment---or at least not reflect badly upon---what Buncher wants to build along the river. (Granted, what Buncher wants to build 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 but one battle at a time.)

Peduto's new developer could help extricate Buncher from a difficult situation (either public scorn or numbers that don't work).

I also heard that Pfaffmann's developer has completely disappeared from any discussions. How surprising.

[Evergrey]

Slimeball Zober quickly lands a job with McKnight Realty. Hopefully the "good ole boy" political/developer network that has resulted in so many bad projects in Pittsburgh (like the Zober-selected McKnight parking-only structure replacing Saks) deteriorates during the Peduto Era.

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/2014/0...development-company/stories/201401150130

Ravenstahl's former chief of staff lands job with development company


Yarone Zober, chief of staff for former Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, has landed a new job.

Mr. Zober, former Urban Redevelopment Authority board chairman, will join McKnight Realty Partners, a Pittsburgh developer that has been active Downtown, on Jan. 27.

According to a McKnight press release, Mr. Zober will be involved in all aspects of the real estate development business, including financing, leasing and business development.

In his capacity as URA board chairman, Mr. Zober worked with Bill Rudolph, a McKnight principal who also served on the URA board.

...



McKnight has been working with Millcraft Investments on a project to demolish the former Saks Fifth Avenue department store and replace it with a parking garage and retail, a deal in which the URA has been involved. As owner of the Oliver Building, McKnight is converting the upper floors into an Embassy Suites Hotel.

...

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I am more inclined to suspect the problem is McKnight, between the McKnight guy being on the URA board, and them plausibly wanting parking but maybe nothing else given their ownership of and plans for the Oliver Building.

Originally Posted by Evergrey

btw... I love these quotes from the Post-Gazette article... Ravenstahl-era Pittsburgh political/developer incestuous cronyism at its finest.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/busi...artment-store-site-687970/#ixzz2TZdlIs1i


and of course... my favorite slimeball...

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/busi...artment-store-site-687970/#ixzz2TZeGivk6

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

I am told that Buncher is quite convinced that its analysis of the Produce Terminal's financials is accurate in terms of amount of money that is needed to renovate and the amount of subsidy that the building will need each year.

I've been involved in enough bidding situations to know that different sophisticated companies can come to very different conclusions about the value of relatively unique opportunities like this. That is why, as a general practice, you should do RFPs and such in cases like this.

But if a bunch of people look at it and no one thinks they can do better than Buncher--then fine.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Slimeball Zober quickly lands a job with McKnight Realty. Hopefully the "good ole boy" political/developer network that has resulted in so many bad projects in Pittsburgh (like the Zober-selected McKnight parking-only structure replacing Saks) deteriorates during the Peduto Era.

From your lips . . . . I know it was not the biggest problem of its era, but that Saks deal was really the last straw for me, and of course this news just confirms how much it stunk.

[DKNewYork]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I've been involved in enough bidding situations to know that different sophisticated companies can come to very different conclusions about the value of relatively unique opportunities like this. That is why, as a general practice, you should do RFPs and such in cases like this.

But if a bunch of people look at it and no one thinks they can do better than Buncher--then fine.

An RFP might well have produced better results, if not years ago then surely now given the significant improvement of the immediate neighborhood of the Produce Terminal.

My only point is that Buncher has a number or a set of numbers that they will not exceed. I am sure that they understand that the Produce Terminal might have a different value and different potential to another property developer. I have inferred from what I have recently been told that Buncher would be perfectly happy if Peduto can produce a developer who will assume the Terminal project. Buncher wants the Produce Terminal developed in some suitable fashion as it is the immediate neighbor to their property. That's all. If the project is done by another firm, from my understanding, Buncher would be okay with that. Perhaps even relieved.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

I have inferred from what I have recently been told that Buncher would be perfectly happy if Peduto can produce a developer who will assume the Terminal project.

Gotcha, and I can't blame them.

[GeneW]

Peduto asks for resignation from all authority board members

The boards include:
Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA)
Housing Authority
City Planning Commission
Allegheny Regional Asset District (ARAD)
Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN)
Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA)
Parking Authority
Sports and Exhibition Authority
Stadium Authority
Zoning Board of Adjustment

Obviously quite a bunch of these are important to development around here, especially the URA, The Stadium Authority, Planning and Zoning.

[BrianTH]

Under the Talent City program, launched by the Foundation in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute of Politics, all candidates for the posted board positions will be screened by a specialized bipartisan selection committee. A final slate of qualified board candidates will be forwarded to the Mayor for review prior to the scheduled February meetings of each of the boards, authorities and commissions. The mayor may choose from these short-lists or request additional appointees for his consideration.

It will be VERY interesting to see how that works out in practice.

[Jonboy1983]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I'm not sure that is right--are you also including the construction costs for the first phase?

I think I did...

It may be possible to build a heavier-duty system in its place using the same ROW, but that would be very expensive just for the existing network, before you could get to any extensions.

Again, it could be viable at some point, but there are a lot of other things I would prefer to do first.

Having a much better public transportation system in place is high on my priorities list, and including heavy/metro rail in the Burgh is one of them.

With that, as requested from another poster on here, I'm done with the Southern Beltway discussion.

Originally Posted by GeneW

Peduto asks for resignation from all authority board members

Obviously quite a bunch of these are important to development around here, especially the URA, The Stadium Authority, Planning and Zoning.

Damn... I move to near Coatesville, and then this happens...

Well, Coatesville is another city that needs a good top-to-bottom deep cleaning...!

[BrianTH]

It occurs to me that if some people in the suburbs are looking at things like Talent City and thinking, even in passing, that it would be nice to be living in the City in order to participate in those things, then those programs are already having a beneficial effect.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

There are also crews clearing this location along Finance Street in Homewood:

http://goo.gl/maps/lcsCk

I believe this may be for the next phase of new homes from Building United of Southwestern Pennsylvania (who did the homes along Susquehanna on the other side of Faison).

I don't know if this confirms the builder I was speculating about, but they are now digging out what look like the foundations for houses at this site. In an ideal world I'd prefer to see a multi-unit building, but in fairness it is still early days for the redevelopment of Homewood, and decent new units of any sort are welcome.

Speaking of digging, a ride on the East Busway these days is great for fans of construction equipment. You've got that project and then the Homewood Station project still in progress. They are also digging pretty deep now at the East Liberty Transit Center/Eastside III site, and steel is beginning to pile up. I think the new street/deck with parking underneath is going to be a pretty impressive sight from the Busway as it is going up, although the wall along the actual Busway station annoyingly blocks the view at a prime location. Anyway, there is also lots of activity at the UPMC parking garage site in Bloomfield--they've completely transformed that part of the valley and are now putting in retaining walls.

So, lots of fun stuff going on. Down the road (no pun intended) the Whole Foods project should launch as well, and you can even spot glimpses of the new apartment building at BKSQ 2.0--hopefully the upcoming office building phase will be visible as well.

[DKNewYork]

This PittsburghTODAY survey just showed up in my inbox. Thought it would be of interest:

http://pittsburghtoday.org/ThePathtoSust...n=Jan+16%2C+2014+Eblast&utm_medium=email

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

This PittsburghTODAY survey just showed up in my inbox. Thought it would be of interest

Very interesting!

That roundup of rankings suggests there are a lot of good things to build on, and I happen to know that a lot of the not-so-good things are in the process of improving. But I would note that none of that is inevitable, and if we want to keep things moving in positive directions we need to be thinking ahead when it comes to all sorts of policy areas--education, environment, housing, transportation, and on and on.

A couple more specific observations:

(1) In terms of air and water quality, we have made a lot of progress in absolute terms, less so in relative terms (since other places are improving too) but still with some convergence. And while we can continue to address various local issues, a lot of the remaining issues really depend on state, regional, and national policy.

(2) There has been a lot of pushback against the TTI's approach to measuring urban transportation issues in urbanist circles recently, with very good reason--in a nutshell, their approach is EXTREMELY autocentric, and implicitly pushes an agenda that would favor longer, albeit higher-speed, auto commutes.

In fact you can see that by comparing the TTI measure cited there (with Pittsburgh ranking 12th of 15 in terms of "the difference between time spent on a 'normal' trip and the average 'commute' on the same highway") versus Pittsburgh ranking 1st of 20 in the Bloomberg ranking I cited (which was based on mean commuting time). The underlying reason for such discrepancies is that the TTI measure cited completely ignores non-auto commutes, and even with auto commutes, the measure is looking not at how long the commute is actually taking, but rather how congestion is affecting that trip time. So if everyone averages a 60 minute commute but "normal" trips would only take 54 minutes (a 1.11! yeah!), you will score much better in this ranking than if everyone averages a 30 minutes commute but "normal" trips would only take 24 minutes (a 1.25?!? boo!). And yet 60 minute commutes are not in fact better than 30 minute commutes.

And while I don't want to reawaken any specific issues we recently put to bed, that is the sort of policy nuance we need to be thinking about: Pittsburgh currently has a competitive advantage in terms of things like housing costs, real world commute times, and so on, which I strongly believe is a large part of why it is doing relatively well in terms of higher-quality jobs growth, educational attainment trends, and so on. But to keep that going we need to be thinking about why Pittsburgh has those advantages now, and how to maintain, enhance, and expand on the underlying factors going forward. What we definitely do NOT want to do is just blindly follow the same policy paths that have led a lot of other U.S. cities into much less favorable end results.

[Evergrey]

Well said, BrianTH!

[dfiler]

I agree. Your analysis of that metric appears to be entirely correct.

I would go even further and assert that it is worthless or maybe even counterproductive to use that metric without other data being considered in unison.

Another compounding factor is that much of the Pittsburgh populace doesn't need to leave their neighborhood for errands or a drink at a local bar. Instead of hopping on arterial roadways for just about anything, as is done in cities like Denver, people can frequently walk or drive a short distance within their neighborhood. While people are willing to drive longer distances for a good job, there isn't the same motivation to bypass local restaurants just to drive to one farther away. Because of this, I would think that non-peak driving in Pittsburgh should exhibit a far greater drop-off than in more suburban cities.

Edit: A factoid that supports this criticism is that Pittsburgh has one of the highest bars-per-capita ratios in the country. This suggests that there are fewer miles being traveled during non-peak commuting hours. Merely comparing peak and non-peak travel time differences won't indicate if the discrepancy is due to extremely congested roads during rush hour or fewer miles being driven at night.

[SkyPittsburgh]

Lots of interesting/ exciting development news in the URA and City Planning Commission agendas and presentations.

http://apps.pittsburghpa.gov/ura-files/1-16-2014-board-agenda.pdf
http://apps.pittsburghpa.gov/dcp/schedule51/presentation-51-496.pdf

Some highlights:
1. New Park Downtown (Small) at 8th and Penn
2. 1208 Grandview Avenue Renovation
3. Potential New E. Busway Stop near Bakery Square
4. Homewood TRID Study
5. More Hill District Housing

[AaronPGH]

^ Nice. I can't seem to find the new Bakery Square Busway stop part, though?

[SkyPittsburgh]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

^ Nice. I can't seem to find the new Bakery Square Busway stop part, though?

It was a part of a little drawing in the Bakery Square project, it is on page 79 of the Planning Commission document.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by SkyPittsburgh

It was a part of a little drawing in the Bakery Square project, it is on page 79 of the Planning Commission document.

I've always wondered cruising by on the Busway whether they would want a new stop over there. They are right on the edge of the ten-minute walking circumferences I have seen mapped out for the East Liberty Transit Center, so it could make sense. It would also be nice if it helped spark some additional development in the area--that whole Hamilton/Frankstown industrial corridor seems perfect for a lot of creative reuse stuff. But hopefully it would replace the driver stop.