PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[haimon]

Crazy, and maybe laughable, but I figured since i've thought about it from time to time, perhaps someone may have actually been insane enough to seriously consider it in the past..... That is, our rivers would be aesthetically much more appealing if it weren't for the heavy mud that permeates the bottoms of the rivers. So, had there been any precedent of drudging the mud out of rivers elsewhere. Would there be a detrimental affect to the river environment? Anyone?

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by haimon

Crazy, and maybe laughable, but I figured since i've thought about it from time to time, perhaps someone may have actually been insane enough to seriously consider it in the past..... That is, our rivers would be aesthetically much more appealing if it weren't for the heavy mud that permeates the bottoms of the rivers. So, had there been any precedent of drudging the mud out of rivers elsewhere. Would there be a detrimental affect to the river environment? Anyone?

Huh?

Rivers are muddy... that's what they do -- move sediment, i.e., mud.

Yes. Not only would you massively increase turbidity in already turbid waters (rivers are naturally turbid), but you would also dredge up tons of contaminants and put them into back into the water which they naturally settle out of. So, it would not be a good idea... and unless you completely paved over the entire watersheds of the Allegheny and Monongahela, Yough, etc, and stopped all precipitation in the watershed, Pittsburgh's rivers would fill right back up with mud, even if you could somehow do what you ask about.

Little experiment for you... turn on your hose and let run down the driveway... a mini river forms, right? Check out what's included in that mini river... pieces of dirt and debris. Big rivers do the exact same thing at munch higher volumes of water and debris obviously.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

Huh?

Rivers are muddy... that's what they do -- move sediment, i.e., mud.

Yes. Not only would you massively increase turbidity in already turbid waters (rivers are naturally turbid), but you would also dredge up tons of contaminants and put them into back into the water which they naturally settle out of. So, it would not be a good idea... and unless you completely paved over the entire watersheds of the Allegheny and Monongahela, Yough, etc, and stopped all precipitation in the watershed, Pittsburgh's rivers would fill right back up with mud, even if you could somehow do what you ask about.

Little experiment for you... turn on your hose and let run down the driveway... a mini river forms, right? Check out what's included in that mini river... pieces of dirt and debris. Big rivers do the exact same thing at munch higher volumes of water and debris obviously.

Hmm, well there goes that idea.

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Hmm, well there goes that idea.

I suppose if you paved over every square foot of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area -- and the upstream watersheds of the whole metropolitan area -- which would be like the western third of Pennsylvania and northern half of West Virginia -- you could get the Allegheny and Monongahela to flow clear through the city.

I'd imagine some people might object, though.

[Minivan Werner]

I believe the rivers are dredged periodically for navigation purposes, but the color of the water has more to do with what's going on hundreds of miles upstream so it's moot. Be cheaper and safer to just invest in millions of gallons of blue food coloring every year. But just as ludicrous.

Personally, I like when the Mon gets really mucky and you can see it mix with the blue/green Allegheny at the confluence. Kinda cool. This isn't the Caribbean, it's the Appalachians.

[Evergrey]

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/9407616-74/public-lawrenceville-amenities#axzz3r3thulMQ

Lawrenceville's Foundry at 41st housing complex to boast of amenities



By Tom Fontaine
Monday, Nov. 9, 2015, 10:30 p.m.
Updated 2 hours ago

A $35 million housing development in Lawrenceville will have a football field-length public plaza under the steel frame of a former industrial building.

“This unique public space will not only draw more people towards the (Allegheny) River, but give residents the feel as if they're walking back in time into Pittsburgh's World War II-era industrial heyday,” said Alex Simakas, who is partnering with Shadyside's Walnut Capital Partners on the project.

The site had been home to Simakas' former Interlocking Deck Systems. For more than a century before that, Phoenix Roll Works made equipment for rolling mills.

The planned five-story apartment building will be at Willow and 41st streets, near the 40th Street Bridge. Dubbed The Foundry at 41st, it will include 182 market-rate apartments, with amenities such as a large outdoor pool and a rooftop sun beach with Downtown views.

The apartments are scheduled to open in spring 2017. They will include “micro” apartments and one- and two-bedroom units, with monthly rents starting at $1,100.

...

[Evergrey]

http://www.post-gazette.com/business/dev...lton-Strip-District/stories/201511100054

New Downtown hotel slated to open in Oliver Building next month

November 10, 2015 12:00 AM

By Mark Belko / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Downtown’s newest hotel will open just in time for New Year’s Eve.

McKnight Realty Partners is planning a “soft opening” for the Embassy Suites Hotel, which will occupy the upper floors of the historic 25-story Henry W. Oliver Building at 535 Smithfield St., on Dec. 29.

The hotel, some three years in the making, will feature 225 suites. Among the amenities will be a 25th floor bar called Ollies Gastropub, with long-distance views into PNC Park, and a restaurant, Elevation, that will serve American comfort food with an emphasis on locally sourced ingredients. The top floor also will house an indoor pool.

Guests also will have access to a ballroom and a conference center on the second floor overlooking Mellon Square park across the street.

McKnight is hoping the two- or three-room suites will help to attract families Downtown on weekends and business travelers on weekdays. Suites are expected to start at about $259 a night.

“This is a unique product to the Downtown scene in that it’s an all-suites product — it’ll have the best rooms, views and food in town,” said Chuck Perlow, a McKnight principal.

The company has spent about $80 million renovating the Oliver Building since purchasing its mortgage in 2011. About $60 million of that has gone into converting floors 15 to 25 into the Embassy Suites.

...

[Evergrey]

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2...ok-at-Oxford-Centre/stories/201511100095

San Francisco firm taking look at Oxford Centre

November 10, 2015 12:00 AM

By Mark Belko / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
One of the nation’s oldest real estate companies has its eye on one of Pittsburgh’s signature skyscrapers.

Shorenstein Properties LLC, a private real estate investment company formed in 1924 and headquartered in San Francisco, has been in talks about a possible purchase of One Oxford Centre at 301 Grant St., according to real estate sources.

However, the firm does not have the building under a formal agreement to be purchased.

Oxford Development Co., which built the 45-story skyscraper in the early 1980s during the city’s Second Renaissance, put the building with its distinctive aluminum and glass octagonal towers up for sale in August.

At the time, Steve Guy, Oxford’s CEO and president, attributed the decision to the strength of the Downtown real estate market and heightened interest in it by institutional investors.

Shorenstein currently holds 24.8 million square feet of real estate nationwide, with properties in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, Houston and other cities. It currently does not own any real estate in Pittsburgh.

...

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/9407616-74/public-lawrenceville-amenities#axzz3r3thulMQ

I'm liking it. I think it looks like proper industrial residential style for that area.

[BrianTH]

Love the creative reuse public plaza element to The Foundry project. That is how to keep Pittsburgh cool.

[qwho]

Maybe they will put some bars or retail on the side of it that we can't see in the render, make it sort of like the Kansas City Power and Light district...


image credit: Douglas Zimmerman

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Love the creative reuse public plaza element to The Foundry project. That is how to keep Pittsburgh cool.

If you haven't been there yet, check out an event at 31st Street Studios. Amazing venue that screams industrial Pittsburgh in the coolest way possible. while entertaining several thousand people.

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Love the creative reuse public plaza element to The Foundry project. That is how to keep Pittsburgh cool.

The facade appears to be corrugated metal... a detestable choice that seems to be de riguer for Pittsburgh's 'new wave of urban apartment buildings'.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

The facade appears to be corrugated metal... a detestable choice that seems to be de riguer for Pittsburgh's 'new wave of urban apartment buildings'.

But maybe that stuff will blow off in strong winds and be upgraded with a better material someday!

[BrianTH]

Yeah, the actual apartment building is meh at best, but at least corrugated metal actually makes sense as an "industrial" design element.

[TBone7281]

Originally Posted by Perch

Yeah no good at all. I think it says something about dedication to American manufacturing too. These are skilled workers that are assembling the world's most advanced freight locomotives we're talking about too, not just laborers who are working on a shop floor pounding something. We always hear about advanced manufacturing and how US companies are all about it... but they're really not... at least they're not interested in paying people realistic wages to do it.

GE somehow thinks that what they've been doing for years now at the Erie plant is going unnoticed by the population at large. Recently, GE Transportation's HQ moved from Erie to Chicago. A year ago they laid off 950 employees in Erie, and then hired back around 500 to complete orders, but those 450 jobs never returned... they went to Fort Worth where they built a new plant in 2011. And they've been doing that same thing for a while now... large layoffs, 200 here, 150 there, 800 here... hire back a fraction of what they laid off and promote that "good" news. Then layoff more, hire some back, layoff even more... and it continues that way until what we have now (only 3,500 employees at the plant) and then it will keep dwindling in the same way until they finally close it. This for a company which featured an Erie-built locomotive on the cover of their 2014 annual report... from a plant that brought the company over $2B in new orders last year. I hate to see this kind of stuff continually happening in western PA.

I don't think they'll be coming back to Erie anytime soon. GE was awarded a contract for 1000 new diesel locomotives... for India.

Accordingly, they're building a new facility over there.

GE to build 1,000 trains for India in massive deal

Originally Posted by TBone7281

I don't think they'll be coming back to Erie anytime soon. GE was awarded a contract for 1000 new diesel locomotives... for India.

Accordingly, they're building a new facility over there.

GE to build 1,000 trains for India in massive deal

This is actually good news, though on the surface it may not seem like it.

The will result will be work at Erie GE plant. So some of those 1500 to be laid off are likely return... when is the question.

The Erie plant builds and ships locomotive assembly "kits" all over the world. This is how GE supplies their overseas locomotive assembly plants. It's actually pretty amazing to watch the shipping process begin at the port. Massive cranes pick the locomotives up and plop them on enormous freighters bound for China, Brazil, and other parts of Asia. So, a $2.6B deal is actually really big news for Erie. The layoffs will likely still happen, but this is definitely a silver lining.

I like how they are using the old steel skeleton in the design. I wish they could always do this when they redevelop old industrial sites

[JVC]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Love the creative reuse public plaza element to The Foundry project. That is how to keep Pittsburgh cool.

very true

[BrianTH]

Extremely interesting paper on gentrification, or really the lack thereof, in East Liberty (this is from an analytics group hired by ELDI to do a series of these papers--this is the fourth):

http://www.eastliberty.org/sites/default...%20Paper_Addressing%20Gentrification.pdf

Even as the crime rate has dropped and property values have increased, there have not been large changes in the demographic and socioeconomic composition of East Liberty. As discussed in the paper, this outcome was no accident--there was careful planning to this end, including the provision of replacement affordable housing units. And that will probably require an ongoing effort, but one might hope this is a model that can be used in many other local neighborhoods.