PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[JVC]

the total number of architecture and engineering jobs in the city is trending steadily higher


but the year over year growth rate is slowing

[JVC]

another thing about a company like walnut capital - you actually know who's running the company,
know they have lots of investments here and are committed to the city

these vitmore guys have done nothing other than dig a giant hole in the ground and close off a street
and no one knows the names of any of the vitmore LP partners - they could all be from out of state
(the article calls them a "a development team led by a local lawyer")
and could care less about how their stalled development affects residents in the area

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/bl...tment-development-proposed-for-baum.html

"The applicant is a firm called Vitmore LP, which is lead by local lawyer George Mongell,
formerly with K&L Gates who is affiliated with the development firm Terradime LLC,
which built an apartment project in Squirrel Hill a few years ago. Mongell could not be reached for comment."

if the leader of the team can't be reached for comment ahead of the planning presentation, that's probably not a good sign



hard work - how about start work?

evidently this dude was responsible for developing an apartment building in squirrel hill
this is what the post-gazette reported back in 2011

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2...rrel-Hill-neighbors/stories/201110170172

'The city's planning office agrees that it meets that goal, but neighborhood groups and the city councilman representing the area remain disgruntled over the project's architecture and tortured history. "He's lost the trust of the community," said Councilman William Peduto. Essentially, Mr. Peduto and some neighbors say, Mr. Mongell has pulled a bait-and-switch -- getting approval for a high-end project and then changing the plans to build a lower-end one. The second complaint is that Mr. Mongell has been hard to get hold of to answer questions and respond to concerns.
"We're not against development," he said. "We want to see development in Squirrel Hill, families moving into Squirrel Hill. But he has changed the plans."
And, said Mr. Baum, he's stopped responding to the community. "He won't talk," he said.
Mr. Mongell did not attend the most recent public hearing about the project last month. In an email, he said he had provided written updates to the community in July and August.
He didn't respond to a message asking when he planned to start building.'

when a developmer builds one building under one name, terradime, and the next building under a different name, vitmore LP, that's also a bad sign

[Austinlee]

Elmhurst lands university, tech firm as first office tenants at Schenley Place

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/bl...lands-university-tech-firm-as-first.html

Dec 24, 2015, 1:47pm EST

Developer gets first tenant commitments for new Oakland office building.

Not a bad looking building.

[speagles84]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Elmhurst lands university, tech firm as first office tenants at Schenley Place

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/bl...lands-university-tech-firm-as-first.html



Not a bad looking building.

Nice! Do you have access to the entire article?

[BrianTH]

As I have noted before, to me it looks like a university building, which seems fine given the context and intended market.

[BrianTH]

Not much new, but here is an article on the retail plans for Tower 260:

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/9606576-74/millcraft-space-downtown#axzz3vR665xso

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by speagles84

Nice! Do you have access to the entire article?

Nope. I need to get a subscription at some point.

Originally Posted by BrianTH

As I have noted before, to me it looks like a university building, which seems fine given the context and intended market.

Which is good considering it is surrounded with historic architecture and only like 2 blocks from the Cathedral of Learning.

[eschaton]

I got a letter from the City about the new riverfront zoning overlay. They seem to think I own property within 150 feet of the new zoning overlay - possibly because my old house in Lawrenceville was only a block away from the site of the old Heppenstall plant.

The actual notice doesn't have much more information than the news article. There is a rather low-resolution map of Pittsburgh which shows where the overlay is set to go, and it's pretty extensive, taking in the entire riverfront.

On the North side, it appears to include everything west of 65. Oddly it doesn't seem to take in all of the North Shore. Perhaps it excludes the block north of General Robinson Street. It does widen again a bit after this, taking in all of Schweitzer Lock, then narrowing to the strip between 28 and the river (but including Washington's Landing).

On the South side of the river, it includes a fair amount of the residential portion of Esplen (maybe half - hard to tell). It then narrows to a thin strip along West Carson, and then includes the South Shore. Through South Side it has a jagged border which cuts fairly deeply into the neighborhood. Then it jumps to a bit of riverfront-ish area around Hays.

Going back up the Mon on the east end, it includes the Almono site and some other bits and bobs of Hazelwood, but seems to purposefully leave out the remaining historic neighborhood near the river there (Scotch Bottom). It includes the Pittsburgh Technology Center, and then follows Boulevard of the Allies all the way to Stanwix. It then seems to bend back on Penn through Downtown, then to Mulberry Way through the Strip. Through Lawrenceville it is inclusive of the industrial zones, narrowing as the strip between Butler and the Allegheny thins, but continuing as a tiny strip all the way out to the border with Penn Hills (and also including a bit of land on the Waterworks side of the river).

Again, this is far more exhaustive than I would have thought possible. It seems that nearly every single bit of riverfront property in Pittsburgh will at least get a zoning overlay, even if all of the land is not eventually rezoned. The only exceptions I see is the riverfront of Brighton Heights (which is a tank farm now) and the riverfront on the Mon upriver from the Homestead Bridge (which is basically unbuidable because of steep slopes and a railroad ROW anyway.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Not much new, but here is an article on the retail plans for Tower 260:

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/9606576-74/millcraft-space-downtown#axzz3vR665xso

I felt obligated to write a detailed response to what I believe is a well-meaning poster on the Trib but a tad bit misguided.

Here is his original comment:

"Joe Smile
People in Pittsburgh are obsessed with building more high rise buildings downtown to make the city look more occupied than it actually is. There are tons of 6 to 20 story buildings completely vacant or half full. So now another high rise that is mostly a hotel.

Mill craft is part of the good old boy network. This project was mostly funded with public money and was delayed for the better part of a year. This would've never been built by millcraft otherwise. Few, if any, projects downtown are funded with private money. There just isn't enough return or demand to entice private money spent there. Look at the old arena site. 5 years later and still parking lots"

My response:

Joe Smile, I appreciate the fact that you care enough about the city to make regular comment contributions. But Millcraft has done some very nice projects in downtown that are without a question making downtown a more vibrant place. The rehabbing of the Lazarus building into mixed use, Market Square apartment renovations, The Gardens mixed use building, the ugly Saks teardown with a new condo tower & the conversion of the state building into the Rivervue apartments. These are all plusses for the city.
And as far as the empty Civic Arena site; Due to the delayed construction start and the backing out of US Steel's underwhelming 5 story HQ design, I would say it's a small miracle that B.I.G. from Denmark has come up with an objectively world class master plan that I sincerely hope gets built. Rome was not built in a day and Pittsburgh's massive comeback from a soot-stained city takes a lot of work.
If anything, we should ALL be most concerned about the non-meritocracy bidding process of Continental Development based in a suburban city (Columbus, OH) that simply doesn't "get" Pittsburgh and our limited land supply. (This is not the endless flat cornfields of central Ohio). Due to the lack of open market capitalism in the bidding process in which the best proposal is supposed to win for the area between the two stadiums has led to very sub-par 3 story buildings not appropriate for such prime, riverfront development that we will be stuck with for the next 50-100 years and unnessarily delayed timeframes that hurt tax revenue the city needs and wide swept parking lots that look like a pock mark on the urban fabric of our great city when out of towners visit that area.
Non-transparent bidding processes for sites like the Northshore and up until recently the lower hill redevelopment (at the mercy of the Penguins development team) are the true enemy against highest and best use real estate redevelopment in our great city.

What do you guys think about these arguments? I am genuinely interested If I have a strong case to an argument such as the one I made.



Also, related the The Gardens aka - Tower Two-Sixty at The Gardens they have a very active FB page with not only updated construction pics but also they post news articles promoting Pittsburgh as a city as well as the local real estate development scene. I recommend following them:

https://www.facebook.com/Tower-Two-Sixty-at-The-Gardens-380898298600030/?fref=ts

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I got a letter from the City about the new riverfront zoning overlay. They seem to think I own property within 150 feet of the new zoning overlay - possibly because my old house in Lawrenceville was only a block away from the site of the old Heppenstall plant.

The actual notice doesn't have much more information than the news article. There is a rather low-resolution map of Pittsburgh which shows where the overlay is set to go, and it's pretty extensive, taking in the entire riverfront.

On the North side, it appears to include everything west of 65. Oddly it doesn't seem to take in all of the North Shore. Perhaps it excludes the block north of General Robinson Street. It does widen again a bit after this, taking in all of Schweitzer Lock, then narrowing to the strip between 28 and the river (but including Washington's Landing).

On the South side of the river, it includes a fair amount of the residential portion of Esplen (maybe half - hard to tell). It then narrows to a thin strip along West Carson, and then includes the South Shore. Through South Side it has a jagged border which cuts fairly deeply into the neighborhood. Then it jumps to a bit of riverfront-ish area around Hays.

Going back up the Mon on the east end, it includes the Almono site and some other bits and bobs of Hazelwood, but seems to purposefully leave out the remaining historic neighborhood near the river there (Scotch Bottom). It includes the Pittsburgh Technology Center, and then follows Boulevard of the Allies all the way to Stanwix. It then seems to bend back on Penn through Downtown, then to Mulberry Way through the Strip. Through Lawrenceville it is inclusive of the industrial zones, narrowing as the strip between Butler and the Allegheny thins, but continuing as a tiny strip all the way out to the border with Penn Hills (and also including a bit of land on the Waterworks side of the river).

Again, this is far more exhaustive than I would have thought possible. It seems that nearly every single bit of riverfront property in Pittsburgh will at least get a zoning overlay, even if all of the land is not eventually rezoned. The only exceptions I see is the riverfront of Brighton Heights (which is a tank farm now) and the riverfront on the Mon upriver from the Homestead Bridge (which is basically unbuidable because of steep slopes and a railroad ROW anyway.

This is great news. Thanks for the info eschaton!


Although I don't think this is exactly what will be built there, I do hope the massing and flow look similar to this oft-passed around high res rendering of the Lawrenceville riverfront.


Architect source: http://www.sasaki.com/project/260/allegheny-riverfront-green-boulevard-study/

(PS: This particular company has master plans listed for practically every emerging city in the world from India, China, Europe, US and even Wheeling & Wilkes-Barre. Yinz should check out some of their rendering/ideas. Interesting stuff)
23 pages worth of master plans w/ renderings: http://www.sasaki.com/projects/

[Austinlee]

Great article I've never seen from Archpaper.com Although it is from 2014, it's interesting to see what an alpha level city (Boston) believes are 11 key projects leading the Pgh revival.
I had never even heard of #8, a van hosting a talk show that went to all 90 city neighborhoods asking people for opinions and advice on what they'd like to see in their city. Worth a read.

http://blog.archpaper.com/2014/04/pittsb...ing-the-steel-city-forward/#.Vn99eBUrLIW

[JVC]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Not much new, but here is an article on the retail plans for Tower 260:

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/9606576-74/millcraft-space-downtown#axzz3vR665xso

without the money-well-spent $5 million renovation of market square in 2010 there would be no $104 millcraft construction in 2015

http://www.pps.org/blog/pitts-mkt-sq-reopens/

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I got a letter from the City about the new riverfront zoning overlay. . . . Again, this is far more exhaustive than I would have thought possible. It seems that nearly every single bit of riverfront property in Pittsburgh will at least get a zoning overlay, even if all of the land is not eventually rezoned.

Thanks for the detailed description! Although I agree it would be ideal to completely overhaul and vastly simplify the zoning scheme, I do think it is pretty great this would be such a comprehensive overlay along the rivers.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

What do you guys think about these arguments? I am genuinely interested If I have a strong case to an argument such as the one I made.

My two cents: so this is a very complex topic you are discussing with Joe. Joe is obviously wrong about a lot of things--for example, vacancy rates are in good shape Downtown, and while Tower 260 did get some public funding, it was still mostly privately financed, not the other way around. That said, he is not wrong that Millcraft has been very active in terms of the private-public backroom deals that have characterized a lot of development projects in Pittsburgh, and I think you are both right that such dealings help explain the poor history of the North Shore and Lower Hill sites to date, even if you have different notions of what the alternatives would have been.

I'd also tend to agree that open bidding of development rights is really the way to go these days. Joe might expect that to lead to less development, but I actually think that practice could to lead more development under present circumstances.

That said, I'm not entirely laissez-faire, particularly when the public owns the relevant property. For example, I am fine with the Hunt Armory going to the ice rink people provided that there really is a lot of public interest in such an amenity and a solid financial plan. But all that can be done very transparently as part of an open bidding process (off hand, I've got no problem with how that has been happening in the Armory case). Similarly, I have no particular problem with trying to incorporate public amenities in the Produce Terminal redevelopment (and off hand, I've been comfortable with that process as well). And I support a riverfront overlay, and so on.

All this is justifiable because it is in fact important to have public amenities like ice rinks, riverfront trails, and so on. Done wisely, those things are ultimately pro-development in general even if they somewhat constrain the use of some individual properties. Historic preservation is in the same category--it provides a lot of public benefit and in fact can be pro-development in general, even if individual properties are somewhat constrained.

But again, all this should be done out in the open, not the subject of backroom deals. And we have had way too much of the latter in Pittsburgh's history. And in fact, even though I believe things are getting a bit better, we are still dealing with those issues both because of lingering deals (e.g., in the Lower Hill), and because Peduto is still steering some rights to his friends (e.g., in the case of the August Wilson Center).

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by JVC

without the money-well-spent $5 million renovation of market square in 2010 there would be no $104 millcraft construction in 2015

http://www.pps.org/blog/pitts-mkt-sq-reopens/

Agreed. Not only did that $5 million renovation create a much more inviting public square but it also has paid dividends with surrounding development such as new restaurants and upgrades to other businesses on the square, the renovation of the Market Square apartments and not least of all a new $108 million dollar mixed use building overlooking the square. Also the mixed use PNC 3 tower luxury condos and Fairmont hotel rooms have a gorgeous view of the square.

We have seen a similar dynamic with Mellon Square as well. A $10 million dollar renovation to the self proclaimed "mid century masterpiece" of Mellon Square (Although I used that park almost every day on my lunch break of few years ago I personally would've liked to have seen a complete modern overall of the park) has arguably spurred a couple hundred million in surrounding re-investment such as the beautiful mixed use renovation of the Oliver Bldg, the addition of the very popular Hotel Monaco with the equally popular Commoner & rooftop Biergarten restaurant, the soon to be sold and renovated Citizens Bank tower (or whatever it is called nowadays), The tear down of the horrible Saks building into a mid rise condo tower, New street level shops on Smithfield below the park, and a plan to convert Smithfield St into a "complete street" with bike lanes, bus lanes and pedestrian consideration. This is not even counting the renovations of the ex-Alcoa tower, updates to the Omni William Penn and the short lived Lord & Taylor historic renovation of the wonderfully ornate Mellon Bank which I believe now is a call center for PNC Bank. (That building is a bit of a tragedy: It started out as a glorious masonry high end bank, then was converted to an insulting 2 story department story THEN downgraded to a cubicle farm for PNC! Perhaps next it can be used as a methadone clinic)

[Austinlee]

Carnegie Mellon and Boeing officials announced Thursday the formation of an aerospace data analytics lab in the university's School of Computer Science that will be staffed with about 20 faculty members and graduate students. Boeing will fund the lab with a total $7.5 million spread over three years.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/9185450-74/boeing-data-lab#ixzz3vYSkPeVT

Also, I read last week that although it's mostly off the radar, Facebook has a tiny division in Pittsburgh of around 10 employees for some type of visual software recognition.

[BrianTH]

I completely agree that the makeover of Market Square was fantastic and helped draw lots more activity to that area, which likely helped speed along investment in the area.

I'm a little more skeptical when it comes to Mellon Square. I haven't seen anything official, but personally I have not really noticed any major uptick in activity in Mellon Square--and of course it is closed for a good chunk of the year. And in that case, it seems plausible to me that pretty much all the surrounding investment would have happened anyway. Those are mostly fundamentally great buildings getting new investments, and they might well be feeding off each other much more than off Mellon Square.

[markson33]

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/9584280-74/tiny-garfield-picker#axzz2JILwSk6Y

Sounds like the tiny houses won't work.

I have to admit I am not a fan of the concept in general, but I would have been interested to see if Eve could pull it off. $180,000 for a 400 + SF house isn't going to work. Even if she can cut that cost significantly it probably won't be feasible.

[photoLith]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Architect source: http://www.sasaki.com/project/260/allegheny-riverfront-green-boulevard-study/

(

Wait, isnt this what theyre currently building down there right now?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by markson33

Sounds like the tiny houses won't work.

I was actually interested to see they haven't entirely given up, although I don't support big public subsidies for this project.

As we discussed before, the problem seems to be mainly the fixed costs of site prep and zoning approval. Maybe if they could spread that out over more sites the cost per unit would be more reasonable.