PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[PGHFan]

Point Park can call itself a university because it grants masters' degrees in 18 areas as well as one doctoral program. I have no skin in the game, but that sounds like a university to me. And I bet to all who go there think it is a university, regardless of how others might see it. So, does it feel better to call it the Point Park College Playhouse? If so, then call it that.

[WillyC]

Originally Posted by Wiz Khalifa

The problem with your argument is that this isn't the black and white issue that you have described. The available options are not "you must either support the playhouse or support the historic structures." There is an option where it is possible to support both, it would just require their architect to incorporate the facades into his design.

This request isn't asking them to move mountains, and since they are already getting $5 million from all of us to make it happen, we have the leverage to make them do it if we were to exert some pressure on our elected officials.

Do we really know there was an option where it is possible to support both, or are we just saying that because we want to save the facades without really considering the financial limitations of Point Park? I find it odd that we can talk many pages back about the financial situation not being very good for these colleges and universities that aren't top tier after the recession and whether or not they will even be there in a couple of decades, and then in the same breath talk about how they must have unlimited funds to build something to our pleasure.

Is that $5 million from all of us just play money? Would the project even be happening without the $5 million? Could Point Park afford it without the $5 million? So because we gave Point Park $5 million to support the one thing that makes them relevant as a school, everything needs to be done as we want? What about where the rest of the financing is coming from, should they not have concerns about how their money is being spent?

I'm all for trying to preserve as much of the city's history that is reasonable, but no one has been doing anything in that part of downtown other than Point Park. Being close friends with two senior managers in commercial lending at two different banks downtown, I'm well aware that they haven't had any interest in financing projects in that area. They are very pro Point Park development and always point out that it is the redevelopment being done by Point Park that makes them consider future business in that area of downtown. Most of them, like me, have only seen the area as an area of run down bodegas and charmless blank brick buildings.

So I guess I find it humorous that people want to pooh pooh a project and stifle future development in that part of downtown over three facades, two of which are arguably not that impressive.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by WillyC

Do we really know there was an option where it is possible to support both, or are we just saying that because we want to save the facades without really considering the financial limitations of Point Park? I find it odd that we can talk many pages back about the financial situation not being very good for these colleges and universities that aren't top tier after the recession and whether or not they will even be there in a couple of decades, and then in the same breath talk about how they must have unlimited funds to build something to our pleasure.

Is that $5 million from all of us just play money? Would the project even be happening without the $5 million? Could Point Park afford it without the $5 million? So because we gave Point Park $5 million to support the one thing that makes them relevant as a school, everything needs to be done as we want? What about where the rest of the financing is coming from, should they not have concerns about how their money is being spent?

I'm all for trying to preserve as much of the city's history that is reasonable, but no one has been doing anything in that part of downtown other than Point Park. Being close friends with two senior managers in commercial lending at two different banks downtown, I'm well aware that they haven't had any interest in financing projects in that area. They are very pro Point Park development and always point out that it is the redevelopment being done by Point Park that makes them consider future business in that area of downtown. Most of them, like me, have only seen the area as an area of run down bodegas and charmless blank brick buildings.

So I guess I find it humorous that people want to pooh pooh a project and stifle future development in that part of downtown over three facades, two of which are arguably not that impressive.

Good point. Architecture fans such as ourselves live with a high degree of idealism in our ideas and the difference between that and financial realities is often tough to accept.

[East Edge]

Originally Posted by Wiz Khalifa

Not to beat a dead horse with this point park discussion, but...



Isn't that the main issue here? Why are they going through the trouble to create an illusion when they could have just left the damn facades alone and had something actually substantive and contextual to showcase with their new development? I makes no sense. And worse, their token"excuse" for it is laughable... they needed an extra foot for their backstage theater space. Give me a break



They could have been integrated tastefully and smart by remaining in the exact place they are now. The rendering might be "smart" from Point Park's design perspective, but economically there is no way that deconstructing them and rebuilding them piece by piece is cheaper.

Also, ripping the facades down for no legitimate reason and then hanging them up as tacky ornaments doesn't strike me as very tasteful either.

People need to get off their high horses, step back and think a minute about the positives behind Point Park's growing investment in Downtown and the impact this project will have in concert with other investments happening in that area.

In case everyone hasn't noticed its not as if there is a huge demand for investors and developers to set their sights on building in Downtown Pittsburgh. Yes we have some nice projects happening but it doesnt come close to the growth and development happening in other cities. I for one am thrilled to see the kind of progress that is happening in our city right now and think its ridiculous how many people want to make things difficult and stand in the way.

Point Park didn't have to go to the extra effort or expense to keep those facades and the fact that they are using them the way that did instead of completely disposing of them in a landfill is to be commended. I am all for saving the historic fabric of our city but these 3 small facades were nearly destroyed anyway thanks to years of neglect and poor decisions. Its not as is someone is proposing to demolish Heinz Hall or the Union Trust building here AND they a F'ng keeping them out in the open for all to see and IMO creating another awesome outdoor URBAN space. Urban doesnt just mean tall buildings its about cultural amenities, street life, encouragement of interaction, etc. The architects have done a tremendous job creating something very complimentary to the surrounding facades and transforming a desolate strip of our Downtown into a destination street that will surely encourage increased revenues and investment into neighboring businesses and facades. I imagine neighboring restaurants like Penn Avenue Fish are going to be slammed on performance nights and perhaps even the cool Chart House's increased business will allow them to step it up a few notches and spend some money improving their business as well.

Lets talk about what is really important here and think about preservation realistically. No one...i repeat NO ONE was ever going to be able to do anything of value with those 3 small deteriorating buildings with there being plenty of other more attractive development opportunities available in Downtown. Those properties would have continued to sit there looking like s't with some useless undesirable businesses in there all the while falling apart without any intervention to preserve them. The preservation approach here was a good model to follow by using a scalpel to remove contributing elements on challenging building sites instead of a wrecking ball and thoughtfully incorporating them into a project preserving the historical context of our city for generations to come.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by PGHFan

Indeed providing or not providing exemptions is what elected officials are there for. but your arguments have not been all about preservation- they have been about land use, the inclusion of decoration, etc.

Correct. I recognize the need to not only point out the applicability of the historic preservation code, but also to address the question of whether this project is so unusually meritorious as to warrant City Council granting them an exemption from the historic preservation code.

And my point is that this project is not unusually meritorious, in fact it is unusually lacking in merit, when you evaluate it objectively from a land use perspective, economic development perspective, and so on. It seems pretty in renderings (with a lot of computer tricks helping out), and some people just love the idea of a theater, but I think there should be more to say for the project than that if they are going to merit an exemption.

In this case, the officials have decided that supporting PPU's Playhouse is more important than saving the three buildings (excluding their facades) in favor of supporting the University to enhance its educational program.

In politics, it ain't over until its over. The process ends with a City Council vote, and while the fix may already be in, you never know for sure until you try.

Incidentally, that's not really the main public argument that officials have been using to justify supporting this project (that it would enhance Point Park's educational program). Rather, they have been arguing it is a good economic development project. I suspect that is in part because it is easier to sell that message to the public, and in part because that was the requirement for getting the $5 million state grant. And who knows, some of them might even believe it--there are a lot of people around here who still think of Pittsburgh as a starving city that needs to grab whatever morsels are tossed its way.

More likely, though, this is yet another friends-in-high-places story. Large local nonprofit institutions (and sports teams, and US Steel, and so on) tend to get their way when it comes to land issues around here. I'm not sure the merits of their proposals actually have anything to do with it.

[Found5dollar]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

So theater snobs may sniff at the notion that mere restaurant development could possibly be as valuable as a student theater complex. But I think the truth is that in terms of real economic development, real nightlife development, and so on, 5-6 restaurants lined along Forbes in this location would crush the value of the student theater complex by something like an order of magnitude or more.

First of all this is the second personal attack you have levied in as many pages on this board. We are discussing Pittsburgh's built environment, not name calling here. Do I work in theater? Yes. Have I been party to other theater projects in the past? yes. Am I a theater snob? no.

The real point is that a theater is a new destination while 3 restaurants would be a continuation of the urban fabric. A destination brings new people to an area while shops and restaurants keep the visitors around ( with a few notable exceptions of places like Hoffbauhaus).

"Only 60,000" new visitors may seem like very little, but it is on par, or above many other transformative institutions in or around the city. According to the Pittsburgh Business Times latest "Book of Lists", there would be more visitors to this theater than the following institutions (2012 attendance figures):

Mattress Factory 17,500
Westmorland Museum of American Art 17,983
U.Pitt Nationality Rooms 18,005
Fort Ligonier 24,186
Old Economy Village 25,000
Fort Pitt Museum 27,566
Friendship Hill Nat. Historic Site 30,000
Pennsylvania Trolley Museum 30,091
Kentuck Knob 35,000
August Wilson Center 38,700
Bushy Run Battlefield 44,784

And just below these:
PCA/Pittsburg Filmakers 85,000
Andy Warhol Museum 88,400

The amount of new people brought to this area because of the theater will be significant and because of the event nature of theater people are more willing to spend at other local institutions and businesses once at the theater. Citizens for the Arts in Pennsylvania released a document detailing "The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations and Their Audiences in Allegheny County, PA" for 2010 and found that on average "Nonprofit Arts and Culture Event Attendees Spend an Average of $21.44 Per Person (excluding the cost of admission)" in Allegheny county.for 60,000 attendees to this new theater that equals an average of $1,286,400 added to the immediate business around this location each year. So in less than 4 years the city should make back in economic terms the 5 million it is giving to Point Park. (http://www.citizensfortheartsinpa.org/ec...mic-prosperity-iv-pa-regional-summaries/)

Arts organizations tend to "spread the wealth" more than just a business does because they are destinations. A person going to the theater is much more likely to spend a night in a hotel or go out for dinner or get drinks after the show, whereas a store or a restaurant while great for a neighborhood and the people there, does not usually create new economic growth the way a destination does.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

The current Pittsburgh Playhouse could be razed, with a mid-rise building of similar scale to the nearby Hampton Inn and Magee office building built on its site.

There is no guarantee of any of that happening. Moreover, the current Playhouse is itself in a unique and historic building:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pittsb...zvQ!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x884cb3509c47eff7

And Oakland is not Downtown.

So I don't think that is a remotely good trade. And it isn't on the table anyway as far as I know.

It isn't surrounded by useless greenscape or parking lots, which are totally inappropriate for Downtown. It also is a zero-setback building. Yes, the street wall is only continuous because of decorative catwalk you note, but it's still better, all things considered, to hug the sidewalk.

It is low-rise, low-density, has lots of open space, doesn't have any ground floor retail, and in fact has no actual entrances on Forbes at all. I don't think putting a really fancy fence along the sidewalk is enough to actually make this a "very urban" design.

So could it be even worse? Sure. Is it actually "very urban"? Of course not.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by WillyC

I find it odd that we can talk many pages back about the financial situation not being very good for these colleges and universities that aren't top tier after the recession and whether or not they will even be there in a couple of decades, and then in the same breath talk about how they must have unlimited funds to build something to our pleasure.

Speaking for myself--not having the funds to do a good project if you are required to comply with the historic preservation code is not a good justification for getting an exemption from the historic preservation code. So if that premise is really true--that Point Park can't actually afford to comply with the code--then the code should be applied, Point Park should sell this land to someone who can afford to comply with the code, and Point Park should do its project somewhere suitable for an entity of such modest means.

Could Point Park afford it without the $5 million? So because we gave Point Park $5 million to support the one thing that makes them relevant as a school, everything needs to be done as we want?

I think it is sometimes justifiable to use public money to help make a good project even better. But you really have to make a strong case that the additional benefit to the public justifies that subsidy.

In contrast, no entity is entitled to public money for a project that won't even count as good after getting the public funding. So again, if Point Park can't afford to do something good here even with our $5 million in support, then we shouldn't support the project (and we can revisit the $5 million if and when they have a good version of the project, and they can demonstrate how the public would benefit).

I'm all for trying to preserve as much of the city's history that is reasonable, but no one has been doing anything in that part of downtown other than Point Park.

That's just false. PNC Tower and the new Oxford tower are literally going in across the street, and the Gardens is just one block further down on the same side. The idea that we NEED Point Park to do a low-rise low-density low-impact project here because there is no hope of ever doing better makes zero sense.

I do appreciate how Point Park has been investing in renovating historic buildings closer to the river. But this is a different sort of project in a different location in what is now a different era.

So I guess I find it humorous that people want to pooh pooh a project and stifle future development in that part of downtown over three facades, two of which are arguably not that impressive.

I understood when people made this argument for PNC Tower. I understood when people made this argument for the new Oxford tower, but obviously the case got weaker at 20 stories versus 33.

But to replace historic low-rise buildings with new low-rise buildings for a low-impact purpose? Do you really believe that is the best that Downtown can do here--even as counterexamples are rising up all around?

[PGHFan]

" Do you really believe that is the best that Downtown can do here--even as counterexamples are rising up all around?" Yes, but then I disagree with what your definition of "best" is. I am done!

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by East Edge

In case everyone hasn't noticed its not as if there is a huge demand for investors and developers to set their sights on building in Downtown Pittsburgh.

In case you hadn't noticed--yes there is.

Yes we have some nice projects happening but it doesnt come close to the growth and development happening in other cities. I for one am thrilled to see the kind of progress that is happening in our city right now and think its ridiculous how many people want to make things difficult and stand in the way.

So we've got much better projects going on in Downtown, including literally across the street, and therefore . . . we must settle for a crappy little project taking up a huge chunk of Downtown, or get left behind?

Seriously, people. Pittsburgh is no longer the ugliest, least popular kid in class, and we don't have to go to bed with every loser who asks us out. We can say no sometimes, and be better off for it when something better comes along.

Point Park didn't have to go to the extra effort or expense to keep those facades and the fact that they are using them the way that did instead of completely disposing of them in a landfill is to be commended.

First, they haven't actually done anything yet. They've gotten push back on this issue so they have tried to throw preservationists a bone to shut them up long enough to demolish the buildings, or at least to persuade the politicians that they can safely ignore the preservationists. But what they are suggesting they might do in these pictures is going to be complex, expensive, and risky, and I don't see any guarantees being offered that any of that will actually happen. They've changed their renderings before, including on this precise issue.

Second, this trend is not to be commended, it has to be stopped cold. Treating historic facades that are currently contributing to historic districts as portable wall-hangings completely misses the point of historic preservation in historic districts.

I am all for saving the historic fabric of our city but these 3 small facades were nearly destroyed anyway thanks to years of neglect and poor decisions.

I don't know what you are referring to. They are in fine shape, and it would be quite easy to do a clean-up and re-use project like they are doing all along Wood, or like the Penn Avenue Fish Company did right down the same block. This is not exactly rocket science, and what is currently keeping that from happening is a land owner who would rather just demolish them.

Urban doesnt just mean tall buildings its about cultural amenities, street life, encouragement of interaction, etc.

First, urban doesn't JUST mean tall buildings, but it does IN PART mean making intense use of land in high-value locations. We should both demand appropriate scale AND appropriate street-level design in our new Downtown buildings, not view it as OK if they get it well less than half right.

Second, again, there is a lot of bamboozling going on here if you think this project is going to encourage street life or encourage interaction. Seriously, there are NO actual doors on the street. This is not urban best practices.

Third, cultural amenities are nice, but large amounts of Downtown land specifically should not be devoted to low-impact cultural amenities. We made that mistake with the August Wilson Center and we would be making it again here. A student theater complex, even by their own projections, just isn't much of an attraction, and there is no reason to believe their projections are credible. I wouldn't have a problem if it was tucked into a small lot somewhere, or part of a mixed-use building, but using this much developable land on such a project is not justifiable.

The architects have done a tremendous job creating something very complimentary to the surrounding facades and transforming a desolate strip of our Downtown into a destination street that will surely encourage increased revenues and investment into neighboring businesses and facades.

Yes, so, so desolate. You know, with the new skyscrapers going in across the street. And restaurants spilling up from Market Square. Horrible, horrible desolation that.

Anyway, there is nothing "surely" about your claim. People make this sort of claim all the time about high-profile cultural amenities, sports venues, and so on. It just SURELY has to be a great economic development strategy to lard up with such stuff, right?

Eh, nope. It may make less news, and thus give fewer politicians in desperate re-election battles a desired photo op, but study after study has concluded that if you want to attract more investment in new offices, residences, restaurants, and such, then what you should build is new offices, residences, restaurants, and such. You don't need the newsmaking stuff favored by politicians, and to the extent it sucks up public funding and developable land, it is really just slowing you down.

I imagine neighboring restaurants like Penn Avenue Fish are going to be slammed on performance nights.

Again, even Point Park is only claiming 60,000 annual non-student visitors. That's just a tiny amount of people to spread around local restaurants.

But you know what would be good for local restaurants? Hundreds of people working there every day. Or hundreds of people living there. Or hundreds of visitors in a hotel. Or some combination of all that.

And in fact, strangely enough, what would be good for local restaurants is more restaurants. It turns out the co-marketing benefits in "restaurant row" situations easily outweigh the competitive losses. Just do something a little different from your neighbors and you can all thrive.

So, no, student theater is not the key to unlocking urban development.

No one...i repeat NO ONE was ever going to be able to do anything of value with those 3 small deteriorating buildings with there being plenty of other more attractive development opportunities available in Downtown.

You can capslock all you want, but that seems like clear BS to me. Again, a simple plan would be restaurants, maybe with some upper floor apartments, the exact same thing that Penn Avenue Fish Company did (and you JUST mentioned them YOURSELF--didn't that seem strange?). Any one such building would likely produce more economic benefit than Point Park's plan.

And in fact, PNC Tower was sold in part as being just the sort of project that would stimulate such investment in the area. But now PNC Tower is actually worthless, and we need a student theater to make it happen?

Again, that's BS.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Found5dollar

Am I a theater snob? no.

I'm sorry for offending you and I happily withdraw that term. As long as you are willing to objectively and open-mindedly discuss the merits of different sorts of establishments and not simply assume that any theater is better for economic development than something like a restaurant, then I am happy to have such a discussion.

The real point is that a theater is a new destination while 3 restaurants would be a continuation of the urban fabric. A destination brings new people to an area while shops and restaurants keep the visitors around ( with a few notable exceptions of places like Hoffbauhaus).

That's not true. The "restaurant row" effect, sometimes called an agglomeration effect, is a very real thing. And in fact there is a great local example handy. Market Square doesn't have a theater, or any other sort of cultural "destination", but it has become a place people go to eat just because it has a lot of places to eat.

"Only 60,000" new visitors may seem like very little, but it is on par, or above many other transformative institutions in or around the city. According to the Pittsburgh Business Times latest "Book of Lists", there would be more visitors to this theater than the following institutions (2012 attendance figures):

First, I would keep in mind Point Park is just saying that they would get 60,000. I published above what the August Wilson Center said, and how that actually worked out.

Second, I wouldn't support devoting this particular land to a low-rise art gallery, or trolley museum, or history museum, or so on either. Conversely, I have no particular problem with the Playhouse where it is. I'm not for or against cultural amenities of all sorts of scale being somewhere in the region. I'm against destroying historic buildings and using up so much Downtown land for a low-impact cultural amenity.

Citizens for the Arts in Pennsylvania released a document detailing "The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations and Their Audiences in Allegheny County, PA" for 2010 and found that on average "Nonprofit Arts and Culture Event Attendees Spend an Average of $21.44 Per Person (excluding the cost of admission)" in Allegheny county.for 60,000 attendees to this new theater that equals an average of $1,286,400 added to the immediate business around this location each year.

Again, there is no guarantee that 60,000, or anything close to it, will be achieved.

Anyway, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership's resident study back in 2010 found that Downtown residents were spending an average of $287 month on dining out alone. That means 400 average residents would spend $1,377,600 annually on just dining out. Moreover, the frequency and amount spent correlated with income, so people in newer more expensive apartments with higher incomes would likely considerably beat those averages. And that doesn't include all their other local spending--dining in, shopping, entertainment, and so on.

You can make a similar case for Downtown office workers--they also eat lunch, eat and drink after work, shop, and so on. Same with hotel visitors.

What you are really running into here is just the sheer lack of scale. There are very few things you can do in a low-rise structure that can compete with the amount of side benefits a high-rise structure will produce, regardless of use. A student theater is not going to be an exception.

So, put three restaurants in the historic buildings, put mixed-use high rises in the parking lots with more restaurants on the ground floor--the total economic impact of that would simply crush the student theater, even if Point Park's number was right.

A person going to the theater is much more likely to spend a night in a hotel or go out for dinner or get drinks after the show, whereas a store or a restaurant while great for a neighborhood and the people there, does not usually create new economic growth the way a destination does.

I really doubt large numbers of people are going to be renting hotel rooms for their big night of student theater.

Otherwise--we've covered this already. You are wrong about the restaurant row, aka agglomeration, effect. You are also completely overlooking all the benefits ordinary workers, residents, hotel visitors, and so on in the possible high-rises would bring. There is just no way a low-rise student theater could compete with that.

[mhays]

Office towers don't mean much for restaurants at night...mostly lunch and limited happy hour. Residents go to restaurants but not in huge numbers per capita...if you put 300 housing units on this site it might mean fewer evening restaurant meals.

An office tower across the street suggests more people who'd sit in that plaza. Being semi-enclosed should make it a good spot when the weather is marginal.

I'm not a partisan on this issue, just making some points.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by PGHFan

" Do you really believe that is the best that Downtown can do here--even as counterexamples are rising up all around?" Yes, but then I disagree with what your definition of "best" is. I am done!

Well, the person I was responding to was talking about stimulating "future business" and "future development," and I was responding with respect to those claims.

I understand there are some people who may cherish a new theater even if it won't have such benefits at a sufficient scale. I will now resist applying any sort of specific term to such people, but I think if that is what you are saying, it does leave you vulnerable to people arguing that is merely a subjective preference, and therefore not the sort of thing that merits an exemption to the historic preservation code or state economic development grants.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by mhays

Office towers don't mean much for restaurants at night...mostly lunch and limited happy hour. Residents go to restaurants but not in huge numbers per capita...if you put 300 housing units on this site it might mean fewer evening restaurant meals.

Ideally you would like a mix of office workers, residents, and hotel visitors, including enough overnight people (residents and hotel) to support some breakfast locations. That allows for a round-the-clock-and-weekends sort of restaurant environment. Lots of Downtown is almost there already, and with all the new stuff coming along it should accelerate that process. Once that baseline is established, just adding to those totals in a more or less balanced way with new developments will keep up that momentum. That's not at all speculative, of course--it is exactly what happened in many Downtown areas in recent years, including places like Center City in Philly.

As for numbers--I'd take my chances with 300 residents in new upscale apartments beating 60,000 visitors to a student theater. At 400 such residents, I am going to give you odds. And that is JUST in terms of dining out--residents spend on other things too.

An office tower across the street suggests more people who'd sit in that plaza. Being semi-enclosed should make it a good spot when the weather is marginal.

Again, Point Park is building a nice big imposing psychological barrier to keep that from happening. It literally looks like the students could man the battlements and repel the invading horde of bankers.

In any event, if we need more public park space, that should be a deliberate process. We don't need Point Park making decisions for us about where and how much park space to have.

I'm not a partisan on this issue, just making some points.

I believe you! I may get a little heated at times, but I don't in fact believe it is impossible for reasonable people to see multiple sides to these issues.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

It is low-rise, low-density, has lots of open space, doesn't have any ground floor retail, and in fact has no actual entrances on Forbes at all. I don't think putting a really fancy fence along the sidewalk is enough to actually make this a "very urban" design.

So could it be even worse? Sure. Is it actually "very urban"? Of course not.

I wasn't the one who called it very urban. I only said that it held to modern principles of urban design better than the new PNC tower (or basically any of the more recent towers put in Downtown, for that matter).

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Do you really believe that is the best that Downtown can do here--even as counterexamples are rising up all around?

Over the last ten years, how many new construction projects has downtown had? Especially once you discount things like this project and the August Wilson Center, which were contingent on public funds? Here's what I count:

Office: I count PNC having built one highrise, with another under construction. Everything else is speculative at this point.

Hotels: The Gardens is under construction (which of course has some office space as well). And if plans don't fall through, there will be a Holiday Inn in First Side. But all the other Downtown hotels being built are conversions, not new construction, AFAIK.

Residential: Conversion of office buildings is hot, but no dedicated apartment buildings have been constructed downtown for at least a decade. Of course there are planned apartments above the new garage being built on the Saks site, but this is a project that is lubricated by tax money.

I might be missing out on things here, particularly more than five years ago. Before I married an architect I didn't keep up with local news as well. But I simply don't think there's incredible demand for Downtown construction. Conversions, yes, but it could be another decade before we burn through all the under-utilized existing buildings in Downtown. I still pass by many buildings in the Cultural District which are clearly vacant above their first floor. There's also no clear evidence that either the residential market or the Class A office market will become expensive enough quickly enough to make highrises more financially doable.

Bottom line is if we sit on vacant lots, I think they'll be vacant for at least another ten years, if not longer. And given there are other hot/potentially hot development areas (North/South Shore, Strip, Lower Hill, ALMANO, South Side, East Liberty, and Lawrenceville - who knows what by 2025), Downtown will have stiff competition.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Ideally you would like a mix of office workers, residents, and hotel visitors, including enough overnight people (residents and hotel) to support some breakfast locations. That allows for a round-the-clock-and-weekends sort of restaurant environment. Lots of Downtown is almost there already, and with all the new stuff coming along it should accelerate that process. Once that baseline is established, just adding to those totals in a more or less balanced way with new developments will keep up that momentum. That's not at all speculative, of course--it is exactly what happened in many Downtown areas in recent years, including places like Center City in Philly.

As for numbers--I'd take my chances with 300 residents in new upscale apartments beating 60,000 visitors to a student theater. At 400 such residents, I am going to give you odds. And that is JUST in terms of dining out--residents spend on other things too.

Again, Point Park is building a nice big imposing psychological barrier to keep that from happening.

In any event, if we need more public park space, that should be a deliberate process. We don't need Point Park making decisions for us about where and how much park space to have.

I believe you! I may get a little heated at times, but I don't in fact believe it is impossible for reasonable people to see multiple sides to these issues.

I agree on the retail/restaurant stuff, which mirrors points I've often made, particularly the way each type of user (hotel guests, residents, etc.) fills a niche that combined will result in a great downtown.

While I obsess like any SSPer about downtown residential, the destination aspect is also important, and is the main way you get real crowds outside of office workers. One small theater complex won't do much, but theaters, conventions, etc., can collectively do a lot to keep things busy for the majority of nights. So much the better if these are people who wouldn't otherwise be Downtown.

It takes a hell of a lot of residents to make a neighborhood even slightly busy. There are an awful lot of quiet streets with 40,000/sm densities out there. Same with residential+office combinations. At that level, you need either events or a great retail core or something like that if you want a busy neighborhood.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I wasn't the one who called it very urban. I only said that it held to modern principles of urban design better than the new PNC tower (or basically any of the more recent towers put in Downtown, for that matter).

Fair enough. They all stink on ice, frankly.

Among many other reasons, that is why I am very hesitant to continue the trend of not enforcing the historic preservation code with respect to these more modest historic commercial buildings. They may not be the Union Trust Building, but when restored and re-used they work fantastically well at street level. Nothing new being put in works remotely as well.

Over the last ten years, how many new construction projects has downtown had?

I think you need to keep in mind that during those ten years, we experienced the worst recession since the Great Depression, which specifically involved a financial crisis, which even more specifically involved the financial markets for real estate development. Now Pittsburgh itself didn't go through a recession that bad, but like everywhere else new construction here was severely constrained by the condition of the financial markets.

So I would suggest you really need to focus on how things have looked just in the last few years as the financial markets have been thawing--and even still, the financial markets are not yet totally normal. And while it is true not much has been completed yet, an awful lot has been started given that short time frame.

I'd also just note this is an extremely well-marked path at this point--lots of other city centers have done all this before Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is late to the party because of the lingering effects of the steel bust, and then a little later still because of the real estate boom and bust, but I really don't see a reason to believe Pittsburgh will permanently stay off that path, and indeed every reason to believe it has already started down it.

In short, I am pretty confident we are just at the beginning of a Downtown investment boom, not the end of one. But even if you see more risk than me that this will sputter out, I certainly don't think you can call it definitively the other way. And so at a minimum, some patience here is in order--we don't need to lock in a low-value project at this juncture.

Conversions, yes, but it could be another decade before we burn through all the under-utilized existing buildings in Downtown. I still pass by many buildings in the Cultural District which are clearly vacant above their first floor.

Conversions really are not a full substitute for new units--office, residential, or hotel. I agree the returns on those have been so safe and easy to get in Pittsburgh that they have proven the more popular choice in a time of tight financial markets, but I don't think that means the exact same dynamic will continue until all the conversion opportunities are gone.

Indeed, consider the Strip. There are still plenty of conversion opportunities there too, but entities like Oxford are now launching brand new developments anyway. As they are planning Downtown.

There's also no clear evidence that either the residential market or the Class A office market will become expensive enough quickly enough to make highrises more financially doable.

Again, I'm not sure we need "clear evidence" before making a little patience worthwhile. But for what it is worth, I'd keep an eye on wage statistics. Pittsburgh was considerably behind national averages and metropolitan averages not long ago, but has been catching up rapidly. Wage increases like that can sustain residential rent appreciation, as well as correlate with office rent appreciation.

Bottom line is if we sit on vacant lots, I think they'll be vacant for at least another ten years, if not longer.

If you put these out to bid, I'd guess less. But even ten years is not too long to wait for a much better end result. Conversely if we make a mistake now, with an institution like Point Park in control of the land, it could be a very long time before we get another chance.

And given there are other hot/potentially hot development areas (North/South Shore, Strip, Lower Hill, ALMANO, South Side, East Liberty, and Lawrenceville - who knows what by 2025), Downtown will have stiff competition.

I'd say those are more complements than substitutes for Downtown, meaning I think increased supply in most of those areas actually leads to increased demand Downtown. Part of that is really straightforward--an apartment dweller in East Liberty can hop a ten minute bus to Downtown and become an office worker. An office worker in the Lower Hill could walk from their cool apartment Downtown (it will be a long, long time, if ever, before the Lower Hill becomes as well-rounded a residential neighborhood as Downtown). And so on.

There is also a more general form of that argument--a lot of the value in city centers is serving as primary nodes in networks of all sorts, and the more stuff that is going on in the other secondary nodes nearby, the higher the value of the primary mode. Downtown's real competitors in that sense are the primary nodes of different networks, not the secondary nodes in its own network.

And even then--with strong enough connections to nearby cities, primary-to-primary becomes a complementary network relationship as well, like downtown Philly benefiting from being well-connected to NYC. So really really, Downtown's competitors are primary nodes of ENTIRELY different networks, which Downtown itself isn't networked to at all. And we don't really need to worry too much about all that--it is a big world--other than to know it helps to invest in new and/or stronger network connections.

In short--dump new investment anywhere in the places networked into Downtown, and odds are Downtown itself will benefit. And with national (and international) capital markets, there is really no reason why investment in those other nodes has to subtract from investment in Downtown itself.

The fundamental constraints, if there are any at all, on city center growth therefore become things like land availability, particularly in combination with long-term, large-scale public capital goods like transit networks (such forward-looking public investments in cities are hard to arrange these days). Which returns us to where we started--it is a big problem to underutilize land in your local network's primary node, because that can actually be a fundamental growth constraint.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by mhays

While I obsess like any SSPer about downtown residential, the destination aspect is also important, and is the main way you get real crowds outside of office workers. One small theater complex won't do much, but theaters, conventions, etc., can collectively do a lot to keep things busy for the majority of nights.

Again, though, I think the studies of such matters don't really support this notion. I'm not saying Downtown should have no entertainment and cultural amenities at all, but these days people are really going in a very different direction for those particular needs (lots of it online, of course, but also any other HD multimedia option). People still want to go out to restaurants and bars, of course, but all that is real world interactive stuff. The idea of leaving your comfy home just to passive sit and watch something live, with no clicker at hand in case you change your mind, is a harder and harder sell all the time, and so it is losing wallet and watch share to either more interactive options, or at-home options, or things that are both.

To be very clear, I'm not quite saying live theater is dead. But I do think we have to understand that placing big bets on it in this day and age is a pretty suspect idea. And in fact we know that, because almost no for-profit entities are building theaters anymore, and even Point Park wants help.

It takes a hell of a lot of residents to make a neighborhood even slightly busy. There are an awful lot of quiet streets with 40,000/sm densities out there. Same with residential+office combinations. At that level, you need either events or a great retail core or something like that if you want a busy neighborhood.

Or a "restaurant row"! Seriously it works. We know that, in fact, because we have nice main streets in all sorts of local neighborhoods which are using that model. In other words, if it can work in Regent Square, it can work Downtown.

Now not every street Downtown can be bustling using this model. But that is why I laid out a very specific vision above for Forbes Avenue serving as the spine between Market Square, Wood, and Smithfield. That could serve as a "main street"/"restaurant row" for a pretty large chunk of Downtown, and in fact it is already partially on that path.

So why not build on that strength, rather than take a flyer on a student theater? Worst case scenario with the student theater, you get another epic bust like the August Wilson Center. Worst case scenario with a restaurant row, you get an extension of Market Square. To me that's a very easy call to make.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Residential: Conversion of office buildings is hot, but no dedicated apartment buildings have been constructed downtown for at least a decade.

Random sidenote: Three PNC has all three of office, residential, and hotel. I'd led to believe PNC might have regretted the residential a bit--it was condos and relatively slow-selling, and they ended up wishing they had more office space for themselves. Still, that's at least one brand new set of residential units.

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I wasn't the one who called it very urban. I only said that it held to modern principles of urban design better than the new PNC tower (or basically any of the more recent towers put in Downtown, for that matter).



Over the last ten years, how many new construction projects has downtown had? Especially once you discount things like this project and the August Wilson Center, which were contingent on public funds? Here's what I count:

Office: I count PNC having built one highrise, with another under construction. Everything else is speculative at this point.

Hotels: The Gardens is under construction (which of course has some office space as well). And if plans don't fall through, there will be a Holiday Inn in First Side. But all the other Downtown hotels being built are conversions, not new construction, AFAIK.

Residential: Conversion of office buildings is hot, but no dedicated apartment buildings have been constructed downtown for at least a decade. Of course there are planned apartments above the new garage being built on the Saks site, but this is a project that is lubricated by tax money.

I might be missing out on things here, particularly more than five years ago. Before I married an architect I didn't keep up with local news as well. But I simply don't think there's incredible demand for Downtown construction. Conversions, yes, but it could be another decade before we burn through all the under-utilized existing buildings in Downtown. I still pass by many buildings in the Cultural District which are clearly vacant above their first floor. There's also no clear evidence that either the residential market or the Class A office market will become expensive enough quickly enough to make highrises more financially doable.

Bottom line is if we sit on vacant lots, I think they'll be vacant for at least another ten years, if not longer. And given there are other hot/potentially hot development areas (North/South Shore, Strip, Lower Hill, ALMANO, South Side, East Liberty, and Lawrenceville - who knows what by 2025), Downtown will have stiff competition.

If you go back 13 years you will get a better picture of downtown construction. The David L Lawrence Convention Center, PNC First Side, Mellon Client Service Center, PNC Park, Heinz Field, The Carlisle (20 story apartment tower), Theater Square, and all of the Northshore were built in quick succession. All of the projects listed replaced either blight or surface parking. During that same time the historic preservation of Penn and Liberty Avenues took the area from seedy to trendy. Not too long ago Penn Ave was a dark back alley to avoid. The transformation of that area was nothing short of amazing.

I never realized that the Ft. Duquesne area (River Parc) was the biggest loss to downtown as far as residential and commercial buildings. The loss of the Fulton / Renaissance Hotel sister building was a crime. It was replaced with that ugly garage.