PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[daviderik]

That's a hotel? I thought that was a hospitals emergency room entrance.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by East Edge

Maybe i need to see this up close but this looks so institutional and plain awful! Reminds of some kind of post modern 90's crap. There is nothing about this hotel from the outside that i find interesting that would inspire me to want to stay there.

As we discussed before, the historical parts are cool, and the interior decoration is pretty funky.

I also still have reservations about the exterior of the modern part, but I was at least half convinced by the analogy that was drawn to the RAND building in Oakland. If in fact the Hotel Indigo was an office building, I'd probably think it was not so bad. As you note, it still doesn't read "interesting hotel" to me, but it isn't quite a finished product yet, and maybe it is partially just a matter of taste anyway.

Bottomline, though--if people like the rooms, the service, the in-house restaurant/bar, the views, the location, and so on, then whether the modern part of the exterior is good, bad, or middling, it will likely still be a successful hotel.

[JVC]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Don't feed the you-know-whats.

name-calling is so childish - wasn't that included in the curriculum at yale?

the drawing and renderings for the new oakland hotel are incredible
the ace hotel has the potential to make east liberty really hip again like when the shadow lounge was open
the hotel is indigo is a disaster

those are opinions and having opinions does not make a person a troll

[JVC]

Originally Posted by East Edge

Maybe i need to see this up close but this looks so institutional and plain awful! Reminds of some kind of post modern 90's crap. There is nothing about this hotel from the outside that i find interesting that would inspire me to want to stay there.

the real selling point isn't the semi-abandoned look of the building itself, it's the amazing views of east liberty from inside the building

[a very long weekend]

Originally Posted by JVC

does that refer to the hotel, the parking, or both?

both, it's incredible that this would be approved in this day and age. i'd even take a parking podium about the ground floor over that. poor design, poor street level experience, massive surface parking lots. what's to like about this? pittsburgh isn't desperate for any development it can get. more should be demanded. this shouldn't even be allowed by zoning, imo.

and calling me a troll? yeah, not a troll.

[JVC]

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

pittsburgh isn't desperate for any development it can get. more should be demanded.

this city is not in a position to make those kinds of demands on developers.
we're not san francisco or seattle with dozens of multi-billion dollar tech companies and hundreds of newly-minted millionaires running around buying everything in sight.
pittsburgh will be lucky to have heinz still in the city at the end of the year when the kraft merger is completed

based on the limitations of our current economy the hyatt house in bloomfield turned out as well as could be expected.
it's not going to be featured in architectural digest anytime soon but the scale is right and they nailed the parking situation and the location in general

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by JVC

speaking of hotel parking, although there's nothing particularly interesting architecturally about the new hyatt house in bloomfield, there is one aspect of the design they did very well - parking

not only does the hotel have a parking lot integrated within the main parcel, it also has auxiliary gated lot across the street

My understanding is that is a temporary lot which may eventually be redeveloped. The owners of the hotel parcel (Concord Sierra Da Shadyside) are different from the owners of the lot (CJV Associates). Indeed, CJV Associates used to own the hotel parcel too - they are the holding company for the land formerly owned by the car dealership. They also continue to own the un-redeveloped land on Liberty, which is supposed to be redeveloped in a later phase.

One thing to remember with hotels is you basically never need any more spaces than the number of employees plus guests - barring some sort of conference facility. After all, people seldom drive to a hotel in separate cars to then share a room. Occasionally, with things like family travel, people will drive in one car and reserve two rooms. Sometimes people will travel in via plane and not get a car at all, although admittedly this seems less likely in this hotel's location than in Downtown. It will be awhile until we know what the true parking need of this hotel is, but I would not be surprised if this is an overshot, analogous to how ALDI massively overshot their own parking needs just down the street.

The bottom line is I fully expect the property between S Aiken and Vintage Way to get redeveloped at some point in the future, when CJV Associates decides putting a new apartment and/or retail there is more lucrative than any parking revenue the hotel is giving them. Presuming there even is a deal with the hotel - as far as I know that lot hasn't changed since the dealership days, and they simply may be land banking it right now.

[a very long weekend]

jvc - sure, but look at the land use for the coming years. sometimes it seems like the sort of people who come onto ssp would rather have a 10 story building with surface parking on 2-3 lots surrounding than have all 3 lots at 1-2 stories. basically mimicking what the electeds in pittsburgh think too. you mention san francisco, sure, that's fair, i live in san francisco and i'll probably never leave here. but the reason sf is the beating heart of the u.s. economy right now owes at least something to the fact that our boomer generation refused to gut the city for freeway development to ease suburban access. and everything that we've done here (pulling down freeways, reducing or prohibiting parking in these central areas, etc) is basic stuff. pittsburgh is one of only a few truly interesting cities in the usa right now; it's a shame that so many people living there just don't seem to realize it, and want to tell us stories about how, oh sorry, this city can't have bike lanes or, oh no, we have to be dominated by automobile traffic, or wah wah wah, if you don't have a parking requirement well how can a neighborhood function? have some pride and ambition, it's a great city you have, better than most. unlike, say, saint louis, you didn't absolutely demolish everything back in the 1960s. you have the bones, like sf, new orleans, boston, etc. to be a great american city.

[JVC]

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

jvc - sure, but look at the land use for the coming years. sometimes it seems like the sort of people who come onto ssp would rather have a 10 story building with surface parking on 2-3 lots surrounding than have all 3 lots at 1-2 stories.

at this point people are most people here are happy to have any sort of new construction in the city, with or without surface parking

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

i live in san francisco and i'll probably never leave here. but the reason sf is the beating heart of the u.s. economy right now owes at least something to the fact that our boomer generation refused to gut the city for freeway development to ease suburban access.

wrong - san francisco leads the us economy because of apple, intel, oracle, google, facebook, etc. it has nothing to do with freeway development

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

have some pride and ambition, it's a great city you have, better than most. unlike, say, saint louis, you didn't absolutely demolish everything back in the 1960s. you have the bones, like sf, new orleans, boston, etc. to be a great american city.

pittsburgh is a great city and residents are proud to live here, but economically the region peaked in the late 70's so people have to be realistic about local development expectations

[Private Dick]

Nice local fluff piece about all the nice national fluff pieces about Pittsburgh. Hey, it's a good problem to have!

Why is Pittsburgh being called the new darling destination?

Last week’s flurry of national media attention on the city’s charms has become the new normal



http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2...darling-destination/stories/201507260178

If there were a drinking game for every time a media outlet “rediscovered” Pittsburgh, after this past week, this city would be under the table.

The New York Times’ Travel section last Sunday told its readers how to spend 36 dynamic hours here, but The Washington Post took a whole family on a road trip and took some time to explore. In fact, the Post couldn’t get enough of Pittsburgh, publishing that with another piece on July 16 on the city’s restaurant scene. Eater.com had the same idea, with a piece July 17 asking, “Is Pittsburgh the Country’s Next Destination Food Town?”

Eater, which provides food news and dining guides from across the country, didn’t think the city was foodie heaven just yet, but that may not matter: The national reconceptualization of Pittsburgh has already taken hold. For locals, while the extra attention is nice, this latest surge of press is just business as usual.

[Minivan Werner]

Originally Posted by JVC

at this point people are most people here are happy to have any sort of new construction in the city, with or without surface parking




wrong - san francisco leads the us economy because of apple, intel, oracle, google, facebook, etc. it has nothing to do with freeway development




pittsburgh is a great city and residents are proud to live here, but economically the region peaked in the late 70's so people have to be realistic about local development expectations

You seem overtly negative in tone in most of your posts.. I think that's what people construe as trolling. If we need to be more realistic about local development expectations, does that mean you do also? And be more positive?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

One thing to remember with hotels is you basically never need any more spaces than the number of employees plus guests - barring some sort of conference facility. After all, people seldom drive to a hotel in separate cars to then share a room. Occasionally, with things like family travel, people will drive in one car and reserve two rooms. Sometimes people will travel in via plane and not get a car at all, although admittedly this seems less likely in this hotel's location than in Downtown. It will be awhile until we know what the true parking need of this hotel is, but I would not be surprised if this is an overshot, analogous to how ALDI massively overshot their own parking needs just down the street.

All this is why the best model is for urban hotels to share parking space in multi-level parking structures or underground garages (outside of dropoff zones and such). That allows hotels to tweak their parking usage to match demand without chewing up tons of land. And you can do that lots of different ways--they might have a lease for a certain number of spaces which can be adjusted over time, or they might just offer valet parking, and so on.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Minivan Werner

You seem overtly negative in tone in most of your posts.. I think that's what people construe as trolling. If we need to be more realistic about local development expectations, does that mean you do also? And be more positive?

Just to be clear--I have JVC on ignore so I only see JVC's content to the extent someone responds to it.

In this case, what I saw was a WillyC post about the biking attack in Lawrenceville. Then I saw two JVC posts (content unknown to me). Then I saw a post from "a very long weekend", apparently in reply to JVC, with a reference to something about biking agendas being crammed down our throats. From that I deduced that in an attempt to troll us in the wake of the biking attack incident, JVC had made some gratuitous negative reference to biking agendas being crammed down our throats.

Personally, I don't have a problem with people who in good faith are more pessimistic than me about Pittsburgh's economic prospects, development prospects, or so on. But I do have a problem with people who post deliberately inflammatory things in an attempt to draw people out into responding to their posts--which is in fact trolling.

Now a bunch more content from JVC has been posted, and it is clearly more of the same. Lines like "economically the region peaked in the late 70's" are not attempts at serious conversation, they are attempts to troll us.

So, my advice is don't feed the troll. And personally, I quite like the ignore function and recommend that people try it out.

[JVC]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

All this is why the best model is for urban hotels to share parking space in multi-level parking structures or underground garages (outside of dropoff zones and such). That allows hotels to tweak their parking usage to match demand without chewing up tons of land. And you can do that lots of different ways--they might have a lease for a certain number of spaces which can be adjusted over time, or they might just offer valet parking, and so on.

if trolling is the act of attempting to be deliberately offensive or provocative,
then there needs to be a word for attempting to deliberately spread wishful and unrealistic thinking

unicorning

name one good reason why hyatt house would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to construct
"multi-level parking structures or underground garages" when there is plenty of surface parking available to them

also, maybe someone could clarify something
is this board meant to be a vehicle for self-glorification?

[JVC]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Now a bunch more content from JVC has been posted, and it is clearly more of the same. Lines like "economically the region peaked in the late 70's" are not attempts at serious conversation, they are attempts to troll us.

"By 1970, Pittsburgh would have the distinction of being the third largest corporate headquarters city in the United States."
http://www.pittsburghquarterly.com/index.php/Region/a-very-brief-history-of-pittsburgh.html

forty years in 2012 later pittsburgh ranked #12

[Evergrey]

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2...-bikers-pedestrians/stories/201507270003

Mon Wharf connector to aid bikers, pedestrians

July 27, 2015 12:00 AM


By Jon Schmitz / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A switchback ramp for bicyclists and pedestrians that will connect the Smithfield Street Bridge to the Monongahela Wharf will have only a single bend in it, but the project has been through more twists and turns than its backers can count.

Now, more than five years after a 2,017-foot-long trail was opened along the Downtown wharf, it appears the switchback and another key connection are finally on their way to construction.

“We are at the point of delivering a fully designed, fully funded project to the city for construction,” said Jay Sukernek, acting director of Riverlife, which has pursued the switchback project for years.

The city of Pittsburgh will oversee construction, which is expected to start in the spring, and will own the completed switchback. Meanwhile, the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has a similar timetable for building a connection to Point State Park at the other end of the wharf trail.

The state expects to take bids for the estimated $1.8 million Point Connector project in November and also begin construction in the spring, DCNR spokeswoman Christina Novak said.

Without the switchback and park connection, the wharf trail has been an orphan, little-used and poorly maintained. But the task of financing and designing the switchback has proved daunting, to the point where Mr. Sukernek jokes that no one in their right mind would try to build something at the site.

...

[BrianTH]

Awesome. I actually walk down to the Mon Wharf quite a bit--it is a nice place to walk--but that does take knowing exactly what you need to do, and it is not bike- or handicapped-friendly. I think completing the overall project should attract a lot more users--currently, I see a lot more people on the Allegheny side, which has much better access--and in fact I would imagine that might become the preferred route for completing the Great Allegheny Passage.

[qwho]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I quite like the ignore function and recommend that people try it out.

That's so much better. Thanks!

[a very long weekend]

Originally Posted by JVC

wrong - san francisco leads the us economy because of apple, intel, oracle, google, facebook, etc. it has nothing to do with freeway development

the reason all these tech companies want to be here is that the boomer generation didn't slice the place up with freeways like so many other american cities did. you can walk here, it's pleasant to live, people want to be around here. this is something that pittsburgh has in common with sf at least more than other cites do (your saint louis, for instance), though obviously there's a lot of work to be done there, the bones exist. in the 21st century, proximity to resource extraction sites or transportation nodes is not as important as a city where people want to be. a great lifestyle will always attract talent and entrepreneurship. adding surface parking lots are like the opposite of what you want, in that respect. your dread "bike lobby" is literally making your city more economically competitive

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

the reason all these tech companies want to be here is that the boomer generation didn't slice the place up with freeways like so many other american cities did. you can walk here, it's pleasant to live, people want to be around here. this is something that pittsburgh has in common with sf at least more than other cites do (your saint louis, for instance), though obviously there's a lot of work to be done there, the bones exist. in the 21st century, proximity to resource extraction sites or transportation nodes is not as important as a city where people want to be. a great lifestyle will always attract talent and entrepreneurship. adding surface parking lots are like the opposite of what you want, in that respect. your dread "bike lobby" is literally making your city more economically competitive

San Francisco is a great place to live, but let's not forget that in many ways it has functionally become a commuter suburb of Silicon Valley - and that it had little to do with the vitality of the tech sector in the area.

The surface parking lots were already there BTW. This site was the nexus of several urban car dealerships originally. The new dense development around this intersection, even if it has some limitations, is a big step forward.