PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

I love Pgh, but the biggest of big wigs almost ALWAYS choose the largest cities: NYC, Chicago, etc.

That is certainly true for the biggest international finance, business services, and professional firms. And that makes sense because all those firms are doing lots of business with each other.

But at the end of the day, this is a ketchup company (and such). I see them as more in the same category as P&G (Cincy), Kellogg (Battle Creek), General Mills (Golden Valley, near Minneapolis), ConAgra (Omaha), and so forth. I guess Coca-Cola is in Atlanta, but that is where they grew up.

So in that industry, I'm not sure it is true there is the same natural draw to the biggest cities. And that would also make sense because their business (factories, customers, and so forth) is typically scattered all over the world (in fact, these companies often swap brands like they are baseball cards), so it doesn't really matter where their HQ is located.

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

But at the end of the day, this is a ketchup company (and such). I see them as more in the same category as P&G (Cincy), Kellogg (Battle Creek), General Mills (Golden Valley, near Minneapolis),

Smuckers (Orrville, OH)

[greg42]

The name may be KraftHeinz but definitely this is a Heinz takeover of Kraft. That ultimately means 3G in charge (Berkshire may own half but we already know it's 3G driving the company).

To see them announce that they will completely abandon the Kraft Town facility? (I think that's what they're doing. The article I just read doesn't make that clear but it said Northfield offices would close.) I would suggest it means they know they'll be cutting a bunch of those people and in office setup they'll be looking at cost and maybe ease of access. I don't know how the cost of downtown Chicago compares with the campus, but I think that goes back to taking a big reduction in space. I can see how the logistics of that would be a ton easier just going to a new space vs trying to reconfigure to use only part of the old. They're looking for 170k sq ft and the current space is 700k. That's gotta cost less pretty much regardless of location.

Whether that bodes well for Pittsburgh keeping HQ in the long term remains to be seen. Heinz has an R&D space in Marshall Township (Warrendale). Is that still in use now after the 3G deal? I can't remember. But if it is, perhaps they intend to consolidate R&D there, thus making the decision to give up the Kraft facility easier.

[photoLith]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

I went to this brewery a few weeks ago. It was awesome! Millvale is FINALLY starting to have a decidedly Lawrenceville vibe. Perhaps not surprisingly, it's right across the 40th street bridge. It has multiple nice murals; The amazing Grist House Brewery; Record store; Awesome music venue and recording studio. I am not exaggerating when I say it IS becoming a hip neighborhood. Also it has that dense, townhouse/rowhouse housing verncaular.

Cheers!

I still haven't noticed a change in the towns populace though. There may be cool places now but I haven't really seen any new hipster types moving there. It's still mostly low income and people on welfare. Usually the way I usually think gentrification works is that new people start moving there then cool bars and coffee shops open. But it seems to be starting out the opposite way in millvale. Most of the people that go to these new breweries in millvale are people from the hipster hoods. I hope new people move there but Millvale still has a bad rap and this deters people from moving here and no houses have started to get restored yet really. In fact they just tore down 2 beautiful 1860s row houses just a couple blocks away that could have easily been restored.

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

I love Pgh, but the biggest of big wigs almost ALWAYS choose the largest cities: NYC, Chicago, etc. I am pessimistic. Best case scenario, there will be some type of dual HQ but I am even doubtful of that.

Well, as has already been stated, these biggest of the big wigs are not looking to move to either Pittsburgh or Chicago. Company ownership in this case is almost all billionaire Brazilians who live in Sao Paulo, Rio, NYC, and Switzerland. C-level execs include many of their Brazilian multi-millionaire buddies. None of them are going to live in Pittsburgh or Chicago (Hees jets in and out of Pittsburgh as it is now). As BrianTH mentioned, this is a company with global operations centers scattered all over the place.

Pittsburgh has been Heinz' HQ in name only anyway for awhile now, especially since the takeover by 3G a few years ago. If Heinz was strictly a Pittsburgh company or even a mainly domestic company, then there would be more reason to fret over a corporate HQ move to a bigger city like Chicago. But really, the Chicago market does not offer much more for Heinz operations than Pittsburgh does. Chicago and Pittsburgh will basically be manager-level operations centers for the global business (I'm confident that plans are to make Kraft a global brand like Heinz is). I can see both cities losing large numbers of employees over time in favor of locations outside the US, more than I can see trying to move roughly a thousand people from Pittsburgh to Chicago or vice versa to consolidate operations. That just wouldn't make sense, particularly since the main executives will never consolidate in either city.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by photoLith

A new brewery just opened up in millvale about two blocks away from where I live and it's pretty sick. Slowly but surely millvale is sort of turning around, now new people just need to move here and the junkies and public pajama wearers need to move out.

I've loved the Draai Laag beers I've picked up at Atlas Bottle Works - particularly the one with elderberries in it (Ragnarok?). Given we have two kids, it will probably be awhile until we can get there however. Seems like a great space put together with a limited budget though.

Originally Posted by photoLith

I still haven't noticed a change in the towns populace though. There may be cool places now but I haven't really seen any new hipster types moving there. It's still mostly low income and people on welfare. Usually the way I usually think gentrification works is that new people start moving there then cool bars and coffee shops open. But it seems to be starting out the opposite way in millvale. Most of the people that go to these new breweries in millvale are people from the hipster hoods. I hope new people move there but Millvale still has a bad rap and this deters people from moving here and no houses have started to get restored yet really. In fact they just tore down 2 beautiful 1860s row houses just a couple blocks away that could have easily been restored.

When I still lived in Lawrenceville I had neighbors two rowhouses down who were renters for a few years. They moved out and bought in Millvale. It's really just the people who want to own and fix up an old house, and for whom Lawrenceville prices have gotten too expensive, who are moving across the river right now. You probably don't see them wandering around on the street because there's still relatively little reason to wander around Millvale aimlessly.

FWIW, if I were 26 instead of 36, I'd buy in Millvale. Or Troy Hill.

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by eschaton

FWIW, if I were 26 instead of 36, I'd buy in Millvale. Or Troy Hill.

Or Reserve Township.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Or Reserve Township.

Aside from a few streets in Lower Reserve which are virtually part of Troy Hill, Reserve Township is either bland mid 20th century suburban, or spooky and semi-rural. I guess if you had kids you could live like just over the city line and "take advantage" of Shaler SD. But otherwise I'd personally pick Spring Hill over Reserve.

[BrianTH]

I would think people would be starting to look at Millvale for tax reasons alone. 2% less earned income tax is a nice little bonus--not enough to justify a long commute, but Millvale is the same distance from Downtown as Squirrel Hill.

I wonder if the developments in the Strip will kick things along a bit faster. Particularly as more jobs are added there, you would think that would help out Millvale.

[Muckk]

I always thought Millvale stood out amongst the mill towns of the region. I used to spend a lot of time there but haven't frequented it much in the last ten years. Circa 2000 and beyond I felt that it was a depressed area like other mill towns but there were people there with purpose, sprinkled in with the various 'stoop goblins' as I used to call them (particularly that woman who used to sell old vhs tapes on the side of the road by the body shop with the pink fence). I still head down there once in a while, mainly to grab a bite at the Lincoln/P & G diner or to go to Jean-Marc's or Mr. Small's. I think Millvale will see a nice turn around. I covered most of Millvale in the last census as an enumerator. It has potential. Assuming Girdy's Run doesn't swallow it whole it should become a nice place to be.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I would think people would be starting to look at Millvale for tax reasons alone. 2% less earned income tax is a nice little bonus--not enough to justify a long commute, but Millvale is the same distance from Downtown as Squirrel Hill.

Millvale's a great place to live if you want to commute by bike into the city. The Allegheny Riverfront trail is by far the best in the city in terms of completeness along with scenery.

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I wonder if the developments in the Strip will kick things along a bit faster. Particularly as more jobs are added there, you would think that would help out Millvale.

Millvale is clsoe to The Strip, but much closer to Lawrenceville. I would think Troy Hill would benefit more, to the extent people don't mind using Rialto Street to get to the 31st Street Bridge.

It might seriously help Millvale if its local bus was routed through the Strip on the way to Downtown instead of going down 28. That said, this would also slow down the bus considerably for Downtown commuters, so I'm not sure it would be worth rerouting across the 40th or 31st street bridge.

[Evergrey]

'Stoop goblins'... great term.

I've always felt Millvale and Etna are twins... but Millvale's little bit better proximity to the city seems to make a difference.

[TBone7281]

Originally Posted by photoLith

A new brewery just opened up in millvale about two blocks away from where I live and it's pretty sick. Slowly but surely millvale is sort of turning around, now new people just need to move here and the junkies and public pajama wearers need to move out.



Draai Laag Brewery.

That's awesome, I didn't realize Draai Laag was actually getting a real location! To my knowledge Dennis had just been brewing in his basement for years. (I think in Sharpsburg or Aspinwall... I forget.) I figured they were getting too big to be doing that.

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Or Reserve Township.

I think Reserve Township is pretty nice. I love the views and it has some good older housing stock.

[TBone7281]

Update from the last couple weeks.

The Yards

7/6






7/9

[TBone7281]

7/14 - from 31st St. Bridge



7/16



From across the Allegheny.

[TBone7281]

First office @ Three Crossings

7/13







7/16 - Eastern Seals building on Railroad. This will, I assume, be the next building demolished to make way for Three (3?) Crossings. Two more offices are going here.

[eschaton]

I do say I have to wonder how much longer the Strip's archaic "Urban Industrial" zoning will remain intact. Every development makes it that much more irrelevant. Pittsburgh really needs to develop a "mixed use, anything goes" zoning category and throw areas like the Strip District and most neighborhood commercial zones into it. Hopefully eventually expanding it over most of the city.

[Evergrey]

This house is obviously a lot older than "6 decades"...

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburg...for-house.html

Why investment group paid $1.2M for a 6-decade-old house in North Oakland: Location

Jul 17, 2015, 4:18pm EDT Updated Jul 17, 2015, 4:22pm EDT



New York-based Park7 Group is close to completing the property on Centre Avenue between North Craig Street and North Dithridge on which it plans to build a new 326-apartment building.

According to real estate records, an affiliate of Park7 recently paid $1.2 million for a single family home at 4504 Centre Ave., a relatively large but aging house built before 1950.

The corner property, the priciest the firm has bought, joins four other houses for which the company paid a total of $2.87 million, along with a Pittsburgh Parking Authority lot at North Craig and Centre, as the combined site on which Park7 proposes to built a larger project.

Paul Levine, executive vice president of Park7, acknowledged the price was high on the most recent house but described the buy in the context of a larger plan.

“Did we over pay for it? Yeah,” he said. "When you have to look at the bigger picture and try to put something together, that can happen.”

Levine said the firm expects to close in the next week on a neighboring house that extends onto North Dithridge and already has an agreement in place with the Pittsburgh Parking Authority on its lot, giving Park7 site control for a project with an L-shaped design.

"We’ll either own houses in Pittsburgh and rent them out or we’ll build an apartment building,” he quipped.

Park7 is retracing most of the steps of a previous developer, Cleveland-based Polaris Equities, which sought to develop a 17-story, mixed use project called “The Chelsea” on a site expected to include the homes along with the parking lot and some adjoining properties. Last March, Park7 first acknowledged it was considering a project at the site, taking over for Polaris, which worked to built the Chelsea before the recession without getting it out of the ground.

...

Levine said to expect a project pretty similar in scale to the Chelsea, with the parking spaces from the public lot maintained along with spaces to serve about 10,000 square feet of retail as well as the building's residents.

He said the bulk of the units in the project are expected to be one- and two-bedrooms, with some threes in a development targeted to a mix of residents such as medical workers at nearby hospitals as well as students attending universities in Oakland.

...

[eschaton]

I'm never really happy about historic housing getting knocked down, but Oakland is one of the few places I almost shrug at it. The elimination of worn grand old houses in favor of a new residential highrise is more than worthwhile. Plus North Oakland's original vernacular has been virtually eliminated anyway - and given the location, they'll almost certainly never be anything but slummy subdivided houses regardless.