PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by WillyC

That small stretch is already a mess of gridlock in rush hour cause of people trying to turn, now it is going to be even worse taking a lane away.

I don't have much direct experience with that stretch, but this seems like a case where removing a travel lane or two might well help. It seems paradoxical at first, but going down to two travel lanes between intersections often helps increase traffic flow in cases like this. That is because often the limiting factor is not capacity between intersections, it is what is happening at the intersections, and reducing the travel lanes between intersections can reduce conflicts at the intersection and increase total flow.

[photoLith]

I for one am a — preservationist but preservimg the facade at street level is the most important thing to me. Usually old building interiors have been completely destroyed and modernized anyways and I've been in those three buildings and they are in piss poor shape and some floors have completely collapsed. Facadectomies are fine by me.

[Urbana]

I cannot imagine the garden theatre design is going to age well at all. That, in my opinion is the real measure of good architecture - are we going to like this in 10 years? 20 years?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Urbana

I cannot imagine the garden theatre design is going to age well at all. That, in my opinion is the real measure of good architecture - are we going to like this in 10 years? 20 years?

My guess is the modern parts will be considered middling representations of their era, but the historic parts will continue to be considered cool.

But we are all just guessing, right? And there is a cycle to all this--common architecture starts looking dated to people after a while, and it can be decades before it has enough historic interest to become cool again.

[photoLith]

I mean to be honest most of the new smaller scale modern — that has been built in this city as infill in the past 5 years is pretty horrible and grating to look at. I can only hope in the future architects return to classical massing and detailing and all of this tin sided oddly placed ugly window building designs get replaced with stuff much better. I don't think anyone ever will look at that new building in the strip where Apple will be in 50 years and say yeah this building is gorgeous and deserves to be preserved.

[DKNewYork]

Originally Posted by GeneW

Well except that the Theater itself has already been destroyed. The only thing left is the front twenty feet or so, the whole interior which which was more or less intact when I walked through in '07 has been gutted and the back of the building was turned into a parking lot.

Was the theatre interior gutted by the old guy from New York who owned it for so long or the URA? I can't remember when he was forced to sell the building.

[AlleghenyCityDude]

Originally Posted by photoLith

I mean to be honest most of the new smaller scale modern — that has been built in this city as infill in the past 5 years is pretty horrible and grating to look at. I can only hope in the future architects return to classical massing and detailing and all of this tin sided oddly placed ugly window building designs get replaced with stuff much better. I don't think anyone ever will look at that new building in the strip where Apple will be in 50 years and say yeah this building is gorgeous and deserves to be preserved.

Your comments and others have touched on the facade of the new building being admittedly not the most horrendous of the new builds, but is still nothing pleasant. It is this aspect of the design that actually could be very easily changed by by Trek & RDC if the community actually got their act together and rallied around one key condition, that the exterior facade be improved. Instead the NIMBY's are going straight to every other stale and harmful argument they've used previously (density, height, threats to historic districts, parking etc.)

The fact is, that every other piece of the design is well thought out and exactly the type of urban design that we need so desperately in Pittsburgh/Northside. The exterior facade is definitely not that important to Trek management. If the community said we will completely support your proposal if you just get an exterior that better suits the character of the community, I am confident that Trek management would agree. Indeed I have been lucky enough to be part of small group meetings to go over design specifics and I'll tell you, it's great design other than RDC's adherence to harmful architectural dogma of "a building must represent accurately the time in which it was built". In fact the project architect on this gave me that exact quote when I asked whether they could better match the character of the neighborhood. But fortunately it is not RDC that makes that call in the end it will be Trek and Trek will do what the neighborhood asks as long as they believe they are being supported otherwise.

[WillyC]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I don't have much direct experience with that stretch, but this seems like a case where removing a travel lane or two might well help. It seems paradoxical at first, but going down to two travel lanes between intersections often helps increase traffic flow in cases like this. That is because often the limiting factor is not capacity between intersections, it is what is happening at the intersections, and reducing the travel lanes between intersections can reduce conflicts at the intersection and increase total flow.

I don't think that will be the case with this. It gets backed up because people heading east on Baynard are trying to turn left onto Craig but only one car makes it per green light because almost everyone coming west is going straight through that intersection so there is never a break in the flow. This causes traffic to back up past Neville into Shadyside on the eastbound lanes. The only thing that has kept it from being too horrendous is that it is two lanes and people intent on going straight or right at Craig when coming from the east can get around the bigger jam in the left lane. If you remove a lane, then everyone is going to have to wait on the people trying to turn left.

It needs to be shared, like it is now, otherwise it is going to cause trouble and create a lot of angry motorists.

Peduto needs to be careful, whether you agree with it being best for the city or not, he is — off a lot of people with the bike lanes to the extent people might actually show up and vote in the next mayoral election. I was at a bar in Lville just last night, a bar and an area that is very biker friendly, but even they were worried that Peduto is going to provoke a backlash.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

Was the theatre interior gutted by the old guy from New York who owned it for so long or the URA? I can't remember when he was forced to sell the building.

No, it was run down but basically intact when the URA got it from the — theater operator. There was an open house in after the city took it over and I got the chance to walk around inside and it was definitely poorly maintained but it was still a grand old single screen theater. The Central North Side and the URA then inexplicably approved a plan to demolish the whole back of the building to make room for a few parking spaces. And they awarded the development contract to a developer who turned out to be completely incapable of finished the project and was eventually removed entirely.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by WillyC

I don't think that will be the case with this. It gets backed up because people heading east on Baynard are trying to turn left onto Craig but only one car makes it per green light because almost everyone coming west is going straight through that intersection so there is never a break in the flow. This causes traffic to back up past Neville into Shadyside on the eastbound lanes. The only thing that has kept it from being too horrendous is that it is two lanes and people intent on going straight or right at Craig when coming from the east can get around the bigger jam in the left lane. If you remove a lane, then everyone is going to have to wait on the people trying to turn left.

Usually they leave the left turn lane at the intersection as part of a plan like this.

It sounds to me like the real problem here is the left turn lane needs a green arrow during the cycle to let a bunch of people turn left before the westbound traffic gets its own green light.

[JVC]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Keep in mind that hypothetical angle is trying to capture as much of the project as possible, which serves a reasonable purpose in this context but is not necessarily representative of the impact it will have for most people (that viewpoint appears to be somewhere in the park, in fact).

As this rendering later in the document shows, from a more representative street view, the 30-foot setback really helps de-emphasize the new parts (except for the new part which is infilling the corner):



From my perspective, this is what is such a bummer about when we lose these historic buildings: they just can't be beat for street-level appeal. But if you can preserve that aspect then you have preserved most of what really matters.

keep in mind that north avenue is a two-way street so it's completely disingenuous to claim that there's a single "more representative street view"

[Private D]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

I've noticed what seems to be an explosion of Healthy Bike riders in recent weeks. Nice to see Pittsburgh becoming healthier, smarter and more sustainable.

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/south/...es-for-an-easy-ride/stories/201507310052

I tested the system out a few weeks ago, and unfortunately I was really disappointed with my first use of it. I understand that it's new, but there were so many bad glitches with the system, that it very obviously wasn't tested fully before rollout. Stations inoperable/unable to rent bikes from, stands unable to accept returned bikes, station maps of Koln, Germany on station screens instead of Pittsburgh, inoperable touchscreens, customer service lack of training... this all happened in one day. I've used bike shares in DC, Philly, Minneapolis, NYC, Dayton, and Miami, and Pittsburgh's is by far the most problematic in my experience. Dayton's (of all places) was absolutely seamless in operation compared to Pittsburgh. That pisses me off that Pittsburgh couldn't do something that Dayton OH was able to do successfully from the start.

I'm hoping that I just had bad luck that day, but I went to 6 different stations and 4 had major operational issues. I was hearing a lot of complaints from other bike-sharers while there. I shared my concerns in detail with customer service, as well as a member of the Healthy Ride board, because I really want this to be successful in Pittsburgh. The board member said there had been some problems with the German company, but they were definitely aware of problems and were addressing them. Let's hope so because a bike system that doesn;t work properly is all the anti-bike yinzers need to pile on with more stupidity.

[DKNewYork]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

I tested the system out a few weeks ago, and unfortunately I was really disappointed with my first use of it. I understand that it's new, but there were so many bad glitches with the system, that it very obviously wasn't tested fully before rollout. Stations inoperable/unable to rent bikes from, stands unable to accept returned bikes, station maps of Koln, Germany on station screens instead of Pittsburgh, inoperable touchscreens, customer service lack of training... this all happened in one day. I've used bike shares in DC, Philly, Minneapolis, NYC, Dayton, and Miami, and Pittsburgh's is by far the most problematic in my experience. Dayton's (of all places) was absolutely seamless in operation compared to Pittsburgh. That pisses me off that Pittsburgh couldn't do something that Dayton OH was able to do successfully from the start.

I'm hoping that I just had bad luck that day, but I went to 6 different stations and 4 had major operational issues. I was hearing a lot of complaints from other bike-sharers while there. I shared my concerns in detail with customer service, as well as a member of the Healthy Ride board, because I really want this to be successful in Pittsburgh. The board member said there had been some problems with the German company, but they were definitely aware of problems and were addressing them. Let's hope so because a bike system that doesn't work properly is all the anti-bike yinzers need to pile on with more stupidity.

New York's CitiBikes program was riddled with the same types of problems (except the foreign city maps) when it started. Took about six months to get the kinks worked out despite the fact that the supplier had the identical program running successfully in another city (Louisville, I think).

[Austinlee]

Yes please.

I like the chaotic, layered façade look. Reminds me of Washington, DC infill.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Yes please. I like the chaotic, layered façade look. Reminds me of Washington, DC infill.

Me too. It also reminds me of the Zombie Chic building going into Baum-Centre:

[BrianTH]

This is an interesting page from the presentation too:



It helped me figure out something . . . there is a nice consistent step back to the new part from the old part, which is good because that should really help preserve the street level feel of the old buildings as almost a distinct row. But then when you look at the new "corner building", it suddenly looks a lot more shallow. But I finally realized that is because what they call the "street face" projects out past the "box" behind it, such that is overlapping the "corner building" as well.

Maybe that was obvious to everyone else all along, but I think that is pretty cool. Generally, I like that look of a bold "street face" almost detached and sliding around the "box" behind. Again, that is part of why I see this as zombie chic, since it reminds me of rotting skin sloughing off flesh.

[JVC]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

This is an interesting page from the presentation too:



It helped me figure out something . . . there is a nice consistent step back to the new part from the old part, which is good because that should really help preserve the street level feel of the old buildings as almost a distinct row. But then when you look at the new "corner building", it suddenly looks a lot more shallow. But I finally realized that is because what they call the "street face" projects out past the "box" behind it, such that is overlapping the "corner building" as well.

Maybe that was obvious to everyone else all along, but I think that is pretty cool. Generally, I like that look of a bold "street face" almost detached and sliding around the "box" behind. Again, that is part of why I see this as zombie chic, since it reminds me of rotting skin sloughing off flesh.

just what the beleaguered residents of the north side always wanted - "rotting skin sloughing off flesh" of their most prominent street corner

ARCHITECTURAL ZOMBIE CHIC PATHOLOGICAL NARCISSISM

[Lobick]

So, for those interested I was at the Garden Theater block community meeting last night and honestly, this meeting was far less confrontational than I anticipated. Much of the opposition, which was relatively light I might add, seemed out of genuine ignorance rather than any sort of organized, informed differences.

The meeting was primarily called to discuss the required zoning variances for both height and density that will be required for Trek to move forward but there was surprisingly little (at least to me) actual community push back on the height/ density issues. I also thought that it was revealing that 4 of the current, historical structures that will be preserved within Trek's plan for the Garden Theater block would not conform to the current zoning parameters established for the block. That suggests (at least to me) that a variance wouldn't necessarily be such a radical step for the block or neighborhood quite frankly.

The buildings fronting North (4,6,8 W. North) are really in pretty deplorable condition and might not withstand another extended delay in development but Trek was very upfront that the URA would not allow them to contemplate any development that didn't preserve at least the facades. Initially, they looked at performing a true facadectomy but the engineering wouldn't support such a solution and they needed to maintain 30 feet of the original building in order to support the preservation. The required work really is quite extensive, essentially building new foundations around and below the existing ones and extensive bracing within the walls behind.

Much of the discussion focused on parking and community outreach to keep everybody informed of the developments. Parking is likely being addressed through the utilization of the garage behind the Garden block which was built with community input some years ago and there's language in the agreement to suggest that 100+ spaces were to be dedicated to community use. Zoning requires that Trek provide at least 58 (?...something like that number) parking spots for the size of the development.

All in all it was a productive meeting and I was encouraged by the generally positive tone of the community. I look forward to the Zoning Board meeting on Thursday. There is some concern that the folks in opposition to the plan were merely keeping their "powder dry" for Thursday...stay tuned.

Also...if anybody is inclined to support the proposal for the Garden Theater block and wants it noted by the zoning board,

Support for the Trek proposal can be e-mailed to:

[email protected] RE: Zoning Case #216

[Evergrey]

http://www.post-gazette.com/business/dev...lew-of-improvements/stories/201508040013

Owner of Allegheny Building on Forbes Avenue plans slew of improvements

One of the priorities will be restoring grandeur to 1st floor

August 4, 2015 12:00 AM

By Mark Belko / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Conceived as an annex to the stately Frick Building next door, the Allegheny Building featured some grandeur of its own — from marble ceilings and cornices to perhaps even a great hall on the first floor.

King Penguin Opportunity Fund, the new owner of the 19-story structure at 429 Forbes Ave., Downtown, wants to restore some of that splendor.

“It’s clearly an opportunity to bring the building back and make it a more desirable address,” said architect Rob Pfaffmann, who is working for King Penguin.

The owner closed on the purchase of the building last week. It paid $7 million for the structure, which originally was listed for sale at $7.8 million. The building, assessed at $2.8 million, was built by Pittsburgh industrialist Henry Clay Frick, who also commissioned the Frick Building.

While King Penguin is planning a slew of improvements, including air conditioning and heating and mechanical updates, one of the priorities will be restoring — as much as possible — its first-floor grandeur.

The space, which now houses the Apollo Cafe and a Crazy Mocha coffee shop, originally had 18-foot-high marble ceilings and cornices, Mr. Pfaffmann said. Based on a 1906 Pittsburgh Post photograph, there also was a large meeting and banquet space the paper referred to as a “pretty hall.”

...

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Lobick

So, for those interested I was at the Garden Theater block community meeting last night and honestly, this meeting was far less confrontational than I anticipated. Much of the opposition, which was relatively light I might add, seemed out of genuine ignorance rather than any sort of organized, informed differences.

Very interesting, and encouraging, report. Thank you.