PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Indeed. As I see it, it all goes back to the fact that our overall flat population hides the dynamic where many older people are passing away or moving to retirement areas, and being replaced by younger, better-educated working adults. And not surprisingly, that incoming doctor taking a job in Oakland or Shadyside doesn't really want to move into Grandma's remuddled house out in the Mon Valley. And we are talking about several thousands of these very different people swapping place like this per year.

I've wondered for awhile for this very reason if Squirrel Hill is slowly losing its relative cache. I mean, it will never go downscale due to how desirable it is for upper-middle class families as a place to own a detached-single family house. But the rental options - be they subdivided houses, two-flats, or the apartment block areas - are all very dated, and seem increasingly kept afloat only due to demand from international students (particularly Asian students) to live in a neighborhood well-placed for a bus commute to Pitt or CMU.

[JVC]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

As documented there, multi-family housing starts recovered well (but now may be leveling off),

calculated risk is a good site with a pro-krugman, keynesian agenda that devotes a lot of space to the real estate market

there's a big difference between posting a chart and understanding a chart

if you go to FRED and max out the time frame it quickly become apparent that the current multi-family boom is minuscule compared to the apartment building that occurred in the 60's, 70's and 80's

it also become apparent that the apartment building trend is down and each periodic boom eventually ends up in a bust that results in new lows in the data

not shown on the attached chart is the fed's massively expanded balance sheet which correlates perfectly with the recent pop on the 5-unit structure chart - money created out of thin air to give the appearance of prosperity

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I've wondered for awhile for this very reason if Squirrel Hill is slowly losing its relative cache. I mean, it will never go downscale due to how desirable it is for upper-middle class families as a place to own a detached-single family house. But the rental options - be they subdivided houses, two-flats, or the apartment block areas - are all very dated, and seem increasingly kept afloat only due to demand from international students (particularly Asian students) to live in the neighborhood due to being well-placed for a bus commute to Pitt or CMU.

Three words: Equity Real Estate

[East Edge]

I love it! Always thought that area of down was kind of cool. Given the surrounding contextual buildings i hope the architect is reading this and will actually take the time to choose exterior finishes that complement them (meaning order brick samples from their rep and actually bring them to the site before finalizing selection).

Brick in rending looks pretty pink which clashes and and i see a lot of pinkish brick in new construction even though they do make more brown / earth toned bricks that I'm sure will look much better next to the existing buildings. Would be nice to see it be consistent with either the PNC Brick or Grant building to break up all of the "red" brick. Also, Seeing as how this will be highly visible from Mt Washington and generations of Pittsburghers will be living with it for a long time, it better be right.

Originally Posted by BrianTH

These are from the Planning Commission presentation:









It isn't groundbreaking, but I think it actually fits the context really well.

[BrianTH]

I agree about the brick color. 4 Smithfield has a sort of lighter orange. The Grant Building of course is medium orange. Fort Pitt Commons is actually a pretty cool mix of browns, greys, oranges, and reds (with some nifty brick work in general). And one of my favorite things about that side of Downtown is when the light is right, it all develops a sort of warm orange glow:



I wouldn't want to just duplicate Fort Pitt Commons, but a nice earthy mix that came across as a bit more orange or a bit more red than Fort Pitt Commons would be cool. If they wanted uniform, I'd still want it in that color range.

I agree going on the cooler side, like the pink-purple mix in the renderings, would be less than desirable. But that might just have been a rendering thing.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I've wondered for awhile for this very reason if Squirrel Hill is slowly losing its relative cache. I mean, it will never go downscale due to how desirable it is for upper-middle class families as a place to own a detached-single family house. But the rental options - be they subdivided houses, two-flats, or the apartment block areas - are all very dated, and seem increasingly kept afloat only due to demand from international students (particularly Asian students) to live in the neighborhood due to being well-placed for a bus commute to Pitt or CMU.

Yeah, I only see the SFHs in Squirrel Hill going up and up. But the apartments--it is hard to see them competing with these new places for young professionals versus students (and not the wealthier students), plus maybe some middle-income East End workers.

Which is fine! We are still going to need plenty of middle-market apartments, and this is how the cycle is supposed to work (depreciation helping to make older apartments more affordable as new apartments push in at the top of the market).

[designer3d712]

There is no Article, but there has been talk on Facebook this morning about replacing the Twin Hi-Way Drive-In (Off 60 in Robinson) with a Sheetz.

I've never been to that Dive-In, but I think it's silly replacing it with a Sheetz, since there is one a couple miles down the road.

There is an open meeting on October 5th at 6pm in the Robinson Township Municipal Building.

[BrianTH]

BIG is doing an introductory workshop at Consol this upcoming Monday to discuss planning for the Lower Hill site. I can't go but maybe someone here would be interested:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/ne...e-developers-to-introduce-designers.html

[greg42]

Originally Posted by designer3d712

There is no Article, but there has been talk on Facebook this morning about replacing the Twin Hi-Way Drive-In (Off 60 in Robinson) with a Sheetz.

I've never been to that Dive-In, but I think it's silly replacing it with a Sheetz, since there is one a couple miles down the road.

There is an open meeting on October 5th at 6pm in the Robinson Township Municipal Building.

That Sheetz just down the road is not the latest and greatest store model of Sheetz. Depending upon the volume of sales (apparently) they will replace it if they can find a site. Or, in that area they might even run two (given that the Twin Hi-Way is closer to I-79 vs the existing Sheetz closer to I-376). There are a number of places where Sheetz has done a replacement store, although there haven't been too many of the Robinson vintage replaced yet. Usually they've been replacing even older stores (e.g. the Freedom Rd store in Cranberry).

The drive in was closed for many years anyway and reopened as a drive in fairly recently, maybe a few years ago? Maybe they aren't doing that well. Perhaps nobody is really that interested in going back to drive ins, although a few have survived. Can't say it's really crossed my mind, but I don't really think of it either. I just think about going to the closest movie places generally, as long as the seating is laid out decently and they have adequate sound.

Sadly, stores moving just down the road to a larger version of themselves is a common theme in sprawl land. There's been a fair amount of push in fast food recently along these lines. Wendy's for example is doing teardowns in a lot of their locations. Apparently a remodel of the existing building is not enough, although they seem to use the existing sites and maybe foundations in most cases.

Most of these guys on here won't care much what's happening out in the sprawl burbs anyway, unless it's something that brings it to a more urban density. That might get their interest. ;-)

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by greg42

Most of these guys on here won't care much what's happening out in the sprawl burbs anyway, unless it's something that brings it to a more urban density. That might get their interest. ;-)

To be fair, this is skyscraperpage, not stripmallpage.

That said, having some sense of what is going on in the lower-density suburbs is undoubtedly important to predicting the long term track of development in the region. Whether that means we need to be deeply interested in every single project--not so much, perhaps.

[greg42]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

To be fair, this is skyscraperpage, not stripmallpage.

True, but even the short stuff in the city is widely debated (or panned, at least!) on this thread. Which I think is fine. Just because it's Skyscraper Page doesn't mean that this development thread need ignore the short development (or restaurant openings or other things that affect the larger picture of the area as a whole). It seems to me most reading and commenting here are pretty much in agreement with this.

Originally Posted by BrianTH

That said, having some sense of what is going on in the lower-density suburbs is undoubtedly important to predicting the long term track of development in the region. Whether that means we need to be deeply interested in every single project--not so much, perhaps.

For sure, not every single project. In the grand regional scheme of things, this particular bit in Robinson is not likely too important. I think the interest in this case might be the loss of a drive-in theater site that otherwise survived this long. Many were redeveloped or at least just closed a long time ago, and on that stretch one might have expected redevelopment of the site sometime during its original closed period. I've been living in the area for nearly 24 years, and if I remember right this drive-in on Rt 60 was closed most of that time (they held flea markets on the property, that sort of thing), and then someone reopened it a several years ago. So someone might conceivably be interested in this, but it's certainly not something that's going to register for most of the city-oriented folks reading here.

I'm going to take a picture of the crane near my office in Wexford, though. I know y'all love crane pics. Who won't love another 4-story office building off Perry Highway? ;-)

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by designer3d712

There is no Article, but there has been talk on Facebook this morning about replacing the Twin Hi-Way Drive-In (Off 60 in Robinson) with a Sheetz.

I've never been to that Dive-In, but I think it's silly replacing it with a Sheetz, since there is one a couple miles down the road.

There is an open meeting on October 5th at 6pm in the Robinson Township Municipal Building.

Thanks for the update, designer.

I'd like to see Sheetz build their new urban-format store in Pittsburgh... they've debuted it in Morgantown and State College.

[Evergrey]

First Niagara's on the auction block:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/bl...-sale-of-first-niagara-would-impact.html

...

Buffalo-based First Niagara is Pittsburgh’s seventh-largest bank by deposit market share. It has 59 branches in the metro region, almost all through its 2009 acquisition of former National City Corp. branches from PNC Financial Services Group. First Niagara had to build its commercial lending operations here from scratch. The bank continued to buy its way across Pennsylvania and New York into New England, but it has struggled performance-wise and failed to effectively capitalize on the purchases.

“Clearly, when a bank hires an underwriter or investment banker to assist them, it’s because they’ve put themselves up for sale, so the real issue is who is willing to buy First Niagara,” said Richard Bove, equity research analyst at Rafferty Capital Markets LLC.

Bove said the likeliest candidates would be Toronto-Dominion Bank, for which “it would be a nice fill-in,” or KeyCorp Inc., “if they’re so inclined to build in the northeast.” Either would be a strong competitor for middle-market loans, creating more options for customers and escalating bidding for business by banks already here.

Dealreporter cited Toronto-Dominion, as well as New York Community Bancorp and Huntington Bancshares Inc.

...

[themaguffin]

The current Sheetz is a much better location business wise then where the Drive In is.

[Urbana]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Thanks for the update, designer.

I'd like to see Sheetz build their new urban-format store in Pittsburgh... they've debuted it in Morgantown and State College.

The one in State College opened the day before yesterday. Lines are already crazy long. I can't imagine they won't be successful. 24 hour food and beer sales until 12:30 are pretty much fail-proof in a college town. I am not entirely sure how well they would fare in Pittsburgh. One in Oakland, of course, would have a similar dynamic to State College and Morgantown. But beyond that it depends on how much people prefer to Sheetz food to McDonalds and the like.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by designer3d712

There is no Article, but there has been talk on Facebook this morning about replacing the Twin Hi-Way Drive-In (Off 60 in Robinson) with a Sheetz.

I've never been to that Dive-In, but I think it's silly replacing it with a Sheetz, since there is one a couple miles down the road.

There is an open meeting on October 5th at 6pm in the Robinson Township Municipal Building.

Sheetz is notorious for placing their huge gas stations every few miles along the same, heavily traveled roads. I wouldn't be surprised nor am I complaining.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by East Edge

I love it! Always thought that area of down was kind of cool. Given the surrounding contextual buildings i hope the architect is reading this and will actually take the time to choose exterior finishes that complement them (meaning order brick samples from their rep and actually bring them to the site before finalizing selection).

Brick in rending looks pretty pink which clashes and and i see a lot of pinkish brick in new construction even though they do make more brown / earth toned bricks that I'm sure will look much better next to the existing buildings. Would be nice to see it be consistent with either the PNC Brick or Grant building to break up all of the "red" brick. Also, Seeing as how this will be highly visible from Mt Washington and generations of Pittsburghers will be living with it for a long time, it better be right.

Driving past there yesterday made me realize something; Once this hotel is built; And once the "Monongahela Tower" on Ft Pitt Blvd eventually finds an anchor tower and is built means there will only be one empty parcel left along that whole highly visible corridor. So 3 buildings away from complete build-out! That's exciting news. I am a huge fan of full build out zones for optimum vibrancy and commerce.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

Given Kennametal, a logical thought or wish. A year or two ago, when FNB opened its regional office on the North Shore, the bank president spoke about basing certain divisions here (wealth management was one) so the bank could attract desired employees who were not thrilled with the thought of living in Hermitage. That should result in greater FNB employment in Pittsburgh, which is great. But FNB would be smart to leave all back office operations in Hermitage (it's less expensive to operate up there). So I am not sure that the numbers of employees here would warrant construction of a new building. But maybe someday. It is one of the fastest growing banks in the Northeast.

Good points however a bank awash in profits doesn't need to occupy 100% of even a modest new signature tower. I'm thinking something like 400-500ft with the bank taking up a couple hundred thousand sq ft; Mixed use buildings being very popular nowadays. Look at PNC 3 as a perfect case study. HQ of Reed Smith law firm; Pittsburgh newest high end hotel, The Fairmont with a a few floors of high end condos up top and a beautiful hotel reception and full service restaurant at street level and taxi service right out the front door.
If I were a developer right now I would building mixed use mid-rises. It hedges your bet against the rollercoaster of too much or too little class-A office space and the ebb and flow of hotel room occupancy rates.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Random thought; I think FNB is a prime candidate to move from the outskirts of the CSA to downtown Pittsburgh which would be the logical place to move to take advantage of the centrally located pool of bank workers. They seem to be a shrewd, growing company and in my unbiased opinion should build a signature tower downtown or anchor one of the couple of towers announced (Oxford's tower on Smithfield or the "Monongahela Tower" on Ft Duquesne Blvd).

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/bl...15/09/f-n-b-completes-bofa-purchase.html

Their current HQ is strangely located in a Lowe's parking lot in Hermitage, PA.

(Below are 2009 numbers; They've grown)



From the above article:

Originally Posted by Evergrey

FNB relocated their HQ to Federal St. across from PNC Park about a year ago.

http://triblive.com/mobile/6418044-96/pittsburgh-delie-national

Originally Posted by Evergrey

First Niagara's on the auction block:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/bl...-sale-of-first-niagara-would-impact.html

FNB is listed as one of the non-primary buyer possibilites of First Niagara in that last article. If they pulled off the purchase and doubled in size over night much like PNC did with the purchase of National City my downtown tower idea for them might suddenly become much more feasible.

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/bl...-sale-of-first-niagara-would-impact.html

[JVC]

Dining News: BRGR moving to bigger East Liberty spot

http://triblive.com/aande/diningout/9070030-74/brgr-bantha-bar#ixzz3meQKaSB6

"The new BRGR space, which will more than double its current location's size, will be at 5947 Penn Ave., on the corner of Penn and Highland Avenues in the Penn Highland Building. The new space will seat 160 inside, with an additional 50 seats outdoors"

what's fascinating is capri pizza directly across the street is like the anti-BRGR (except maybe on poetry night) - it's a great place to have a few cold cheap miller lite drafts after work or grab a gyro for lunch and it's a 100% yuppie-free environment, the complete opposite of trendy BRGR

the new BRGR plans to have yuppies sitting at outdoor tables on the sidewalk like mad mex - capri has an outdoor popular bus stop for locals