PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[Austinlee]

So with 350 5th Ave and the Saks building being torn down for apartments/parking garage the OBVIOUS question is how long until the Park Building, downtown's most eligible rehab project in waiting gets a full makeover? That will be an amazing day and I bet it's not too far down the road.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I didn't say there was nothing worth saving, but IMHO there's relatively little that was built after 1940 I'd be sorry to see go.

I guess we would have to focus on specific buildings to figure out where, if at all, we would draw a different line. But to give some examples, I think it would be cool to do the renovation of the Cold Storage building, and there are a whole bunch of buildings along Penn between 16th and 22nd in the 2-5 story range that I like.

I dunno. When I look at this block in the strip, I might like the vibrancy on the street level, along with the business mix. But I can't ignore it's basically a faceless, one-story warehouse building that's subdivided with horrible facades. Only the two-story building at the corner is remotely worth saving.

I largely agree those buildings in particular are not contributing much to the historic district, but then if you do a 180 in that exact spot, you can see a bunch of the buildings along Penn I think are worth keeping. And in general, I just don't see the need to target that section of the Strip. There is a ton of empty space to work with elsewhere in the Strip if you want to do multi-level residential or offices. In fact, you could just add more stories to various upcoming developments. So why displace successful stores until you actually need the space?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, seems like a good rule of thumb in cases like this.

It's basically slowly transitioning into a normal mixed-use neighborhood, which is why you're seeing more neighborhood-like retail these days like restaurants, the new bike store, the brewery, etc.

I don't really care too much about the business-to-business stuff shifting over in favor of neighborhood retail. But I do think the parking concerns are overblown in terms of regional retail--structures can replace the surface lots, and a streetcar would help as well.

[DKNewYork]

CMU selected a Santa Monica-based architectural firm to design the new Tepper School, which will be the first building of the Tepper Quad north of Forbes:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/bl...-santa-monica-firm-to-design-tepper.html

The projects shown on the web site are really encouraging. Looks like the firm has done some interesting work.

http://www.moorerubleyudell.com/

The web site has a page for the Tepper project but it doesn't show much more than a pic of the campus showing where the Tepper Quad will be built:

http://www.moorerubleyudell.com/news-item/tepper-school-business-carnegie-mellon-university

[DKNewYork]

Interesting article about this old McKeesport hotel and the crowdfunding campaign to restore it.

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/pr...estoring-vintage-hotel-using-modern.html

[deja vu]

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

CMU selected a Santa Monica-based architectural firm to design the new Tepper School, which will be the first building of the Tepper Quad north of Forbes:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/bl...-santa-monica-firm-to-design-tepper.html

The projects shown on the web site are really encouraging. Looks like the firm has done some interesting work.

http://www.moorerubleyudell.com/

The web site has a page for the Tepper project but it doesn't show much more than a pic of the campus showing where the Tepper Quad will be built:

http://www.moorerubleyudell.com/news-item/tepper-school-business-carnegie-mellon-university

This is encouraging. I know a lot of the work this firm has done in other academic campus settings has been very successful and well-received. They are good at integrating a complex array of urban components and circulation routes to create interesting spaces. Hopefully they can set the bar high for future additions to that quad. And I'm glad to see they left some room for Scotty.



Still waiting for a new school of architecture / fine arts building to be proposed...

[DKNewYork]

Originally Posted by deja vu

This is encouraging. I know a lot of the work this firm has done in other academic campus settings has been very successful and well-received. They are good at integrating a complex array of urban components and circulation routes to create interesting spaces. Hopefully they can set the bar high for future additions to that quad. And I'm glad to see they left some room for Scotty.



Still waiting for a new school of architecture / fine arts building to be proposed...

Any talk about what the current Tepper School building will become once the biz school moves across Forbes?

And at one point I thought the idea was to build an addition to the east side of the Margaret Morrision Carnegie building for the arkies and fine arts.

[Grego43]

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

Interesting article about this old McKeesport hotel and the crowdfunding campaign to restore it.

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/pr...estoring-vintage-hotel-using-modern.html

My parents' wedding reception was held there is 1957.

[photoLith]

Don't know if this has been mentioned but the cranes up at the gardens now.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by photoLith

Don't know if this has been mentioned but the cranes up at the gardens now.

http://oxblue.com/open/TheGardens

[Brentsters]

Interesting news out of Uptown in an upcoming ZBA hearing. 10-story, 77-unit residential on Fifth across from the arena. It's unclear if they will renovate both 4-story buildings at 1034 and 1040.

Zoning District: UNC
Ward: 1
Council District: 6,Councilperson R. Daniel Lavelle
Neighborhood: Bluff
Applicant: Cypress Partners ,LLC
Owner: Lewis J Kerrington & Margaret L

Renovate existing 4-story structure with 6 stories of new construction
above and construction of 10-story multi-unit residential building on
three adjacent parcels (77 units).

http://apps.pittsburghpa.gov/dcp/schedule53/agenda-53-607.pdf

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Brentsters

Interesting news out of Uptown in an upcoming ZBA hearing. 10-story, 77-unit residential on Fifth across from the arena. It's unclear if they will renovate both 4-story buildings at 1034 and 1040.

It would be a huge bummer if they planned to tear down 1040. But otherwise that is an exciting project. Infilling Fifth/Watson/Forbes with 10-story buildings would be sweet.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Brentsters

Interesting news out of Uptown in an upcoming ZBA hearing. 10-story, 77-unit residential on Fifth across from the arena. It's unclear if they will renovate both 4-story buildings at 1034 and 1040.

The document makes it sound like they're going to renovate only one of the buildings, and as their floor heights look quite different (1040 looks a full story larger despite the floor counts being equal!), I don't think both could be integrated into one larger building regardless.

If you had to choose, 1040 is clearly the one worth saving. Both have nice historic facades, but 1034 looks similar to dozens of buildings in the city. The average floor height seems to be around 12 feet as well, which I think seems closer to 1040's dimensions than 1034.

[Evergrey]

http://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/08/28/pi...ure-for-road-space-shortage/#more-155731

Thursday, August 28, 2014
15 Comments

Pittsburgh Business Leaders See Bikeways as Cure for Road-Space Shortage

by Michael Andersen



Downtown Pittsburgh has a perfectly good reason to be running out of room for more cars: Its streets have been there since 1784.

“In Pittsburgh, we have too many cars chasing too few parking spaces,” Merrill Stabile, the city’s largest parking operator, said last week. “I am in favor of building a few more parking garages. But we’ll never be able to build enough to meet the demand, in my opinion, if we continue to grow like we’ve been growing.”

That’s why Stabile is among the Pittsburgh business leaders backing a plan announced Tuesday to reduce downtown’s dependence on car traffic by adding a protected bike lane to Penn Avenue.

Jeremy Waldrup, CEO of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, said the protected lane, which will return Penn Avenue to one-way motor vehicle flow by removing an eastbound traffic lane, will make it comfortable for most people, not just the bold few, to bike downtown.

“One of the most important things is that we have as a city developed this incredible trail system, many of them leading to downtown,” Waldrup said. “But once you’ve made it to the borders of downtown, you’re literally on your own to get into the city.”

Penn Avenue’s new one-mile bike lane, installed as a pilot project over the next few weeks, is part of a wave of protected lane projects in American central business districts.



And it’s happening one of the country’s oldest downtowns: a triangular grid built for horses and carriages that by 1900 had become the 11th-largest city in the United States — and has spent the century since then trying to find room for cars.

...

[Gilamonster]

Demolition of Station Square's east warehouse is progressing quickly. I don't have pics but can see the progress everyday on the trolley.

[daviderik]

“In Pittsburgh, we have too many cars chasing too few parking spaces,” Merrill Stabile, the city’s largest parking operator, said last week. “I am in favor of building a few more parking garages. But we’ll never be able to build enough to meet the demand, in my opinion, if we continue to grow like we’ve been growing.”

We have too many cars because Pgh's public transit sucks! And a bike lane is like putting a band aid on a cancer patient. Not nearly enough. (although I am not opposed to the idea.) I also know the city wants to reduce the amount of busses on downtown's streets. Or at least re-route a few. Light rail is limited to the south hills. I can't wait to see the mass of bicyclists pedaling across our three rivers to work.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by daviderik

We have too many cars because Pgh's public transit sucks! And a bike lane is like putting a band aid on a cancer patient. Not nearly enough. (although I am not opposed to the idea.) I also know the city wants to reduce the amount of busses on downtown's streets. Or at least re-route a few. Light rail is limited to the south hills. I can't wait to see the mass of bicyclists pedaling across our three rivers to work.

Pittsburgh's public transit does not suck. It's within the top dozen nationally regarding utilization throughout the metro. Only the Northeast Corridor cities, San Francisco, and Chicago are clearly far superior.



It's also the 16th highest city overall. This ranking is more impressive than it sounds, because some metros have multiple cities which pass Pittsburgh. If you're only counting core cities within the metros, Pittsburgh again hits the top 10.

Not that there isn't a lot more I wish Pittsburgh transit would do. But we're already, at least in terms of ridership, better than any city in the South, any city barring Chicago in the Midwest, and all of our "rust belt" peers.

[BrianTH]

Buncher is out, one of the others will be in next week, on Produce Terminal redevelopment:

http://www.post-gazette.com/business/201...-s-produce-terminal/stories/201409030065

I think that was more or less a foregone conclusion once they got three reasonably serious bids for portal approaches. It will be interesting to see who gets the final nod, however. I think there were good things about all three bids, so I hope whoever is picked is willing to incorporate the best ideas.

[Evergrey]

I agree with both daviderik and eschaton.

While PGH's transit is superior relative to most of the U.S. (not a high bar)... it still sucks.

And while I support development of biking infrastructure (though I have my reservations about Penn Ave)... bike commuting is by far the tiniest mode share after transit and walking... and will remain tiny even if biking were to double overnight with these improvements. I don't believe turning Penn into a bike lane is going to have a measurable impact on reducing the demand for parking Downtown.

More transit and more people living in core neighborhoods will increase non-car modal share to Downtown.

[BrianTH]

I don't think bike-commuting is the whole answer, but it could have a significant impact. If you look at the experience of cities like Portland, it seems possible Pittsburgh could increase its mode share of bike-commuters by around another 4-5% in the next 10 years, which could be around 4500-5500 employees Downtown. And that is probably a low estimate, since the Portland data is city-wide, and Downtown Pittsburgh would likely see more than its fair share of any similar increase in Pittsburgh city-wide. On the other hand, you'd probably be taking a good number of those riders from transit rather than driving, so I'll be conservative and estimate around 2500 employees shift from driving to biking. A few of those people may be sharing rides, so let's call it 2000 fewer vehicles.

There are around 40000 off-street parking spots in Pittsburgh, so 2000 fewer vehicles would be a pretty significant shift. Or to put it another way, that would free up around as much space as the three garages between Macy's and Boulevard of the Allies provide (there are 2268 spaces combined in those three garages, and at a realistic 85% occupancy rate, that is around 1928 daily vehicles).

On the other hand, accommodating something like 5000 more bike-commuters a day Downtown would not be trivial. Obviously they take up a lot less road and parking space than cars, but you would still want an integrated system of bike lanes and secure bike parking to make all this easy and attractive to people on the margins. But it could all be well worth it if it saves us from having to find another 2000 or so Downtown parking spaces in the next decade (or at least until driverless cars solve these problems entirely).

As an aside--2000 vehicles is right around the peak capacity of one lane of highway for one hour. So there is also a transportation capacity benefit possible here too, although to get serious congestion relief you will actually need to institute congestion pricing. But all that fits together--with congestion pricing, those current drivers who could shift to bike-commuting occasionally will be more likely to do so, and some current drivers could also shift over into the approximately 2500 transit seats we hypothetically freed up. And if you could reduce the daily rush hour commuting load into Downtown by something like 4000 total vehicles (2000 to bikes and 2000 to transit), that could be quite helpful indeed.

[photoLith]

Yeah, adding a bike line is nice and all but its just a couple blocks long and wont do shit for increasing bike traffic. I bike downtown almost everyday and I just dont see how adding a bike line to the Cultural District is going to make biking more accessible or whatever.