PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[dfiler]

An IndieGoGo fundraiser has been created for opposing the proposed big-box development at the former babyland property in East Liberty. The zoning hearing is scheduled for July 17th and they are hoping to be prepared by then.

"We aim to keep Penn Ave. small-scale, vibrant, and welcoming. Help us stop a big-box development project on the Penn-Negley corner, a main neighborhood gateway."

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keep-it-neighborhood-help-babyland-grow-into-something-better

[photoLith]

I have been super impressed with mayor Peduto, I see him all the time, talked to him on a few occassions. I think he will really do some great things to pull this city into the 21st century and out of the 1980's.

[Found5dollar]

So I walked to the bank today and decided to take some pics of the developments in downtown East Liberty and along Ellsworth ave. here are the updates:


Ace Hotel

still no real change from the exterior. No windows installed yet.


East Liberty Place South

Brick is beginning to go up over the insulation.


Hotel Indigo



Looks like the masonry is just about finished. Onto windows and interior work now. I am actually really disappointed with this. All the new construction is incredibly bland. The only interesting side is from the courtyard they are creating.


Alpha 1

http://www.alphabetcityco.com/content/alpha-i-pittsburgh-east-liberty-pa
Yen's has closed but no work seems to have happened to the buildings.


Eastside III

http://www.designcollective.com/portfolio/project/the-mosites-company--eastside-iii-redevelopment/
One story of parking is complete. It is amazing just how much land was here to be developed. This is going to be absolutely transformational.


Motor Square Garden dome restoration

Restoration work continues on the Dome. While i hate the current use for this building, I have to commend AAA for keeping the building up.


"Articulations" building

Well it looks like they finished, Zhang's moved in. The sign is hilariously painted, only being upstaged by the plastic brick on the second story.


Demolition on Ellsworth next to Petagogy

This old brick building is being demolished. I talked to a guy there and apparently it is coming down and a new 2 or 3 story building begin built in its place. It will have a store front and the guy that is building it will live on the top floors. While it 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 to loose a building like this it has obviously been neglected for quite some time and I was looking at the wood they were pulling out and it was all charred. Was there a fire here a while ago? If so the building may not be salvageable.

[Evergrey]

Thanks for the updates, $5. I agree that the Indigo project is very weird visually.

...

another announcement for Uptown:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/bl...hes-forward-with-uptown-development.html

Jul 7, 2014, 10:46am EDT

Castlebrook pushes forward with delayed Uptown apartment development

After first proposing an apartment development in Uptown nearly three years ago, Castlebrook Development is moving ahead with a new, larger project in the 1600 block of Fifth Avenue.

The company is on the July 17 meeting agenda of the Pittsburgh Zoning Board of Adjustment for a 74-unit apartment building at 1625-1640 Fifth Ave., a parking lot property that is one of many in the neighborhood owned by Sal Williams.

The new version of the project is a story shorter but has 29 units more than the project originally proposed in 2011, a 45-unit project with 45 integral parking spaces in an eight-floor building. The project is also proposing 23 spaces for bike parking.

Castlebrook seeks variances to maximize the floor area ratio, lot coverage and building height.

Pat Nardelli, a partner in Castlebrook, declined comment.

[ladsnine]

Originally Posted by Found5dollar

Hotel Indigo

Is this exposed parking on the first floor abutting a street? (and with no garage entrance, weirdly) Is that even legal?? Kind of seems like it shouldn't be.

The diagonal columns kind of make it look like 1967. The overall design kind of looks like they couldn't pick a style so they just did them all.

[SkyPittsburgh]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Thanks for the updates, $5. I agree that the Indigo project is very weird visually.

...

another announcement for Uptown:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/bl...hes-forward-with-uptown-development.html

Good to see that this project is finally doing something important, removing a parking lot! While I wish that this project would be a little bit taller and have a few more units, this kind of apartment development can really change the whole Uptown vibe.

[BrianTH]

Also many thanks for the photos.

This was the rendering of the Hotel Indigo up on the site at one point:



It looks like the design has been changed a bit, and I think in fact it was changed a bit at the request of City Planning, but I also think there may still be some color contrasts, trim, and signage to come that will make it a little more interesting.

Still not an incredible looker, maybe, but the fact they saved the Kirkwood/Governor's Hotel and the other historic building on that side makes it a winner in my book:

[TBone7281]

Slow at work today so I took a walk and noticed that they are remodeling the building next to Gaucho Parrilla in the Strip. (Not the building they are taking over for their expansion, but the other one.. Happy Family)

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.448914,-...1!3m2!1sr0EQ4D1YYSA0ElikQSlM3g!2e0?hl=en

Not sure if someone else is moving in or if they are just prettying it up. The building is now a gray color and all the doors on the back side (facing Smallman) are a bright white.

[photoLith]

Originally Posted by Found5dollar

Alpha 1

http://www.alphabetcityco.com/content/alpha-i-pittsburgh-east-liberty-pa
Yen's has closed but no work seems to have happened to the buildings.

Whats going on with this building? Last time I heard they were tearing this down, at least thats what Glowrock told me like a year ago. I hope they arent tearing it down.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by ladsnine

Is this exposed parking on the first floor abutting a street? (and with no garage entrance, weirdly)

No, that should be lobby/restaurant-type space. The glass is currently missing.

[Evergrey]

This paywalled article from the Biz Journal seems to allude to a concept many of us have advocated here... expanding the geographic bounds of Downtown...

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/pr...wn-pittsburgh-will-be-reshaped-with.html

Downtown Pittsburgh will be reshaped with accelerated investment in Strip District



With more than $5 billion in development happening within a 225-acre wedge of mostly built-out land downtown, it will be necessary for Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle to expand its borders to accommodate new growth.

Perhaps the most logical place for that to happen is in the Strip District.

There is a growing consensus Pittsburgh’s skyline will be altered by growth in the Strip, in particular the burgeoning development along Smallman Street, the Allegheny Riverfront and Penn Avenue adjacent to the triangle of the Central Business District.

“It’s going to be the Golden Ladle,” quipped Gregg Broujos, managing director of the Pittsburgh ...

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by photoLith

I hope they arent tearing it down.

They are still tearing it down--in fact, this is the same project we were just discussing where they had to pass a state law to add in the grass strip along the road.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

This paywalled article from the Biz Journal seems to allude to a concept many of us have advocated here... expanding the geographic bounds of Downtown...

I liked the "Golden Ladle" line, but if Downtown also expands into the Lower Hill site (as it should), it will really defy easy description.

[Evergrey]

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/pr...gh-downtown-resurgence-propelled-by.html

Pittsburgh downtown resurgence propelled by purchasing power


File photo by Joe Wojcik
151 First Side, located at 151 Fort Pitt Boulevard, downtown, is a newly constructed condominium building.

In October, the accounting firm Schneider Downs moved from the Strip District to One PPG Place. Nine months later, its CEO is following suit: Ray Buehler and his wife Kathy will settle into a condo later this month at 151 First Side after having sold their house in Upper St. Clair.

“The first thing everyone asks is, ‘Where are you going to do your food shopping?’” Buehler said. “We’ve never in our lives walked to Giant Eagle. You jump in your car. We can be at the Giant Eagle on Banksville or Camp Horne Road probably just as fast (from downtown).”

Buehler allows there will be some wait-and-see as the couple adjusts to its new neighborhood and develops shopping orbits.

“But all the other things — the post office, laundry, the banks, the CVS pharmacy — are right there,” he said. “That’s going to be easy.”

Even after a couple of decades based in the adjacent Strip, Buehler watched downtown lose a string of department stores — Gimbel’s, Joseph Horne Co., Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue. Only Macy’s is left and it is downsizing.

“There was a lag effect: We all moved to the suburbs and built the malls,” he said. “I hope there’s another lag effect with more grocery stores and smaller stores as more people move downtown.”

Think of the Buehlers as urban pioneers, joining 12,343 downtown residents, the current count, according to John Valentine, executive director of Pittsburgh Downtown Community Development Co. Granted, Valentine’s downtown includes the North and South shores and parts of the Strip and Uptown.

“We expect another 3,000 units in the pipeline,” Valentine said. “That’s without more developers coming in, and I’m telling you more developers are looking for buildings to convert from office to residential and some are looking to build from scratch, either apartments or condominiums. When you look six years out, it could easily go from 10,000 to 20,000. That’s realistic.”

...

[Urbana]

Originally Posted by photoLith

Whats going on with this building? Last time I heard they were tearing this down, at least thats what Glowrock told me like a year ago. I hope they arent tearing it down.

It is to be replaced by this.

http://www.alphabetcityco.com/content/alpha-i-pittsburgh-east-liberty-pa

There are more refined renderings somewhere. I will try to dig them up.

[Urbana]

^^^

Here we go.

[SkyPittsburgh]

Originally Posted by Urbana

^^^

Here we go.

That is actually an older rendering, before it went to the planning commission, where it was changed to the first rendering provided.

[Evergrey]

A name that has probably been posted a thousand times in this thread...

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/pr...pher-briem-quantifying-pittsburgh-s.html

Jul 4, 2014, 6:00am EDT

Christopher Briem: Quantifying Pittsburgh’s evolution



Many people speculate about where Pittsburgh is headed, but Christopher Briem has made a career of it. He studies urban and regional demographic trends at Pitt’s Center for Social and Urban Research and is responsible for forecasting and simulation and regional and state workforce analysis. It’s light years from the derivative products trading floor at Lehman Brothers in New York City, where Briem spent a year as an analyst before coming to Pittsburgh and academia. He brings wit and brevity to complex data marking the transformation and evolution of the region, making it accessible.

...

If you could make one realistically obtainable change for Pittsburgh going forward, what would it be?

Too many of our problems result from the sheer fragmentation of local government in southwestern Pennsylvania. I understand the fear of many who think larger governments are not the way to go, but that isn't really the issue. The Pittsburgh region stands out in how small our municipalities and school districts are, and the efficient scale of basic services really require some better ways to provide basic public services.

...

[Evergrey]

A couple years after the 1.2 mile North Shore Connector opened... sold to the public as a connection to future expansion to the north and/or west:

"There are no plans to expand light rail service anywhere." - Port Authority spokesman Jim Ritchie

So the takeaway seems to be that local authorities are relieved that PAT has emerged from its existential crisis... but there is little vision or political will for future development.

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/print-edition/2014/07/04/a-catalyst-for-sustained-growth.html

Jul 4, 2014, 6:00am EDT

A catalyst for sustained growth



The good news: Funding for public transportation in Pittsburgh has been steadied by state subsidies. The bad: The outlook for expansion in the coming years is, at best, limited.

Approved by the Legislature and signed into law last November by Gov. Tom Corbett, Act 89, the state transportation funding bill, helped bolster the Port Authority of Allegheny County’s finances by providing enough money to erase projected deficits through 2016 and avert fare increases and cuts in service.

While the aid was indeed welcome, the reality remains there is little room for expansion in the foreseeable future.

“I don’t think that ...

[Evergrey]

This seems to be the point Markson has been making...

"Despite their increasing age, downtown's Class A buildings are well positioned to remain relevant in 2020 since the occupancy levels are historically high and there's little room to build other high-rises. While rents are rising, they're still not high enough to justify much new construction in the core, even as smaller-scale buildings may proliferate nearby."




http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/pr...owntown-high-rises-due-for-nip-tuck.html

Jul 4, 2014, 6:00am EDT

Pittsburgh's downtown high-rises due for nip, tuck

Many of downtown’s most recognizable buildings have reached middle age, creating the need for more updates between now and 2020.

The biggest, U.S. Steel Tower, was built in 1970, which means by 2020 it will be at the ripe old age of 50. It ushered in an era of downtown skyscraper construction, with PPG Place, Fifth Avenue Place, One Oxford Centre, BNY Mellon Center, Liberty Center and what is now EQT Plaza all built during Pittsburgh’s second renaissance in the 1980s, largely under then-Mayor Richard Caliguiri’s watch.

As these buildings age, the need increases for ongoing investment and improvements.

“It ...