PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by photoLith

What do you mean?

The option where you take multiple photos in a row quickly. Like 10 photos in a 1-2 second time frame.

[Steel City Scotty]

I snapped a couple of pictures of the demolition at the Saks Fifth Avenue site while walking down Smithfield Street earlier this week.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by AFW523

Milhaus 40th and Butler Development Images

Paywalled, but with first images. Too early to tell - from what I've heard, the natives are restless and unimpressed. Anyone go to the meeting?

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

Boring as fuck.

While the architecture is a somewhat boring ShiPaTown style, it looks urban and functional & has a zero lot line (aka - No setback from the sidewalk) and I think it would be a nice infill project to help connect Lower & Central Lawrenceville.


Also, $120 million: 625 units with shops and restaurants? If i'm not mistaken this will be the largest residential project currently happening within the city of Pittsburgh. This is around double the units of the huge Skyvue apartment building U/C in Oakland right now.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by Steel City Scotty

I snapped a couple of pictures of the demolition at the Saks Fifth Avenue site while walking down Smithfield Street earlier this week.

Good riddance! And never forget:

[MarkMyWords]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Good riddance! And never forget:

What is that building in the 3rd picture? It looks vaguely familiar. I first thought that it might be the old post office building which stood on Smithfield further south, but it's the wrong location and the wrong architectural style.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by MarkMyWords

What is that building in the 3rd picture? It looks vaguely familiar. I first thought that it might be the old post office building which stood on Smithfield further south, but it's the wrong location and the wrong architectural style.

It's the old city hall that predated the City-County Building.

[Minivan Werner]

Amazing building. Reminds me of some German city council (rathaus) buildings.

[Austinlee]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this website before.
Very nice blog:
Building Pittsburgh
"Information and events affecting Pittsburgh’s construction and real estate market"

http://buildingpittsburgh.com/


Here's another awesome website that has a user friendly map showing all the 45,000+ vacant city lots. It even differentiates by color code the difference between privately owned vacant lots, city owned private lots and green for "side yards". I could see myself using this resource to one day search out vacant private lots to look into purchasing for home construction, particularly ones on hilltops with skyline views.
Also it notes if they are delinquent in taxes which would help your negotiations if you approached the owner about selling! (never forget the 3 "D's" for obtaining undervalued real estate: Death, Divorce & Destitution (foreclosure)

http://www.lotstolove.org/

[BrianTH]

The Old City Hall was built circa 1870. It was designed by Joseph W. Kerr in the French Second Empire style, which became very popular for American civic buildings in that era. Many of them were torn down, but here are some survivors.

Providence City Hall:



Baltimore City Hall:



Of course the Philadelphia City Hall (with its Tower of Over-Compensation):



And the Eisenhower Executive Office Building:



As an aside, my understanding is that Philadelphia also looked into demolishing and replacing its then-unfashionable City Hall in the 1950s, but didn't do it because demolition would cost too much!

[Austinlee]

^I weep for a handful of demolished grand old buildings in Pittsburgh. These include:

- The old City Hall building on Smithfield
- The Post Office on Smithfield
- The Wabash Terminal
- The Bessemer & Natatorium buildings - sister highrises of the Fulton Building (currently Renaissance hotel)
- Nixon Theater (On site of old Alcoa HQ tower)
- Syria Mosque (It was allegedly one of the best national examples of a rare architectural style called - "exotic revival architecture")
- The Carnegie Tower - You know, the guy who BUILT Pittsburgh and everything is named after him. His highrise that he ran the worlds FIRST BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY and one of the first highrises in the world (started in 1893 and completed in 1895) was razed for a Macy's annex. :/

Pittsburgh also has the distinction of tearing down two of the tallest highrises to ever be demo'ed. #13 and #21 on the worldwide list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_voluntarily_demolished_buildings

[Austinlee]

Other cities have had similar awful losses.

Penn Station, NY:




Chicago Federal Building




City Hall Post Office in New York

[Steel City Scotty]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

^I weep for a handful of demolished grand old buildings in Pittsburgh. These include:

- The old City Hall building on Smithfield
- The Post Office on Smithfield
- The Wabash Terminal
- The Bessemer & Natatorium buildings - sister highrises of the Fulton Building (currently Renaissance hotel)
- Nixon Theater (On site of old Alcoa HQ tower)
- Syria Mosque (It was allegedly one of the best national examples of a rare architectural style called - "exotic revival architecture")
- The Carnegie Tower - You know, the guy who BUILT Pittsburgh and everything is named after him. His highrise that he ran the worlds FIRST BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY and one of the first highrises in the world (started in 1893 and completed in 1895) was razed for a Macy's annex. :/

Pittsburgh also has the distinction of tearing down two of the tallest highrises to ever be demo'ed. #13 and #21 on the worldwide list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_voluntarily_demolished_buildings

Many of the buildings you mentioned are featured in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVAoNF8x-kI

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by Steel City Scotty

Many of the buildings you mentioned are featured in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVAoNF8x-kI

I know but slow paced youtube slideshows don't agree with my A.D.D. I prefer to research them and come to my own conclusions. (with all due respect to your trying to help me)

[BrianTH]

The Wabash Terminal was at least justifiable in that it was gutted by fire.

But I would also add the East End Savings and Trust Building, which used to be next to the Highland Building in East Liberty:





Not sure I can hotlink this but definitely worth clicking:

http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000yK02rkI2E34/s/750/750/1921-Highland-bldg.jpg

Bonus image of Bessemer and Natatorium buildings:



Check out that old high-level rail and sloping riverfront!

One of the sad things is how many of these buildings were replaced by something truly crappy, like a parking lot or parking structure, or the crap building that became the Saks, or the crap building that became the PNC branch in East Liberty.

[eschaton]

Looked over the Historic Review Commission's presentation. Most of it is too far down in the weeds for us to discuss here - minor renovations and expansions to existing historic structures.

One thing is worth discussing though - a new 35-unit apartment building in Allegheny West. Okay, technically Central North Side, on the northern side of W North Avenue, but within the Allegheny West Historic District. It is a planned renovation of the "Stables Building", along with constructing a new-construction building (essentially integrated internally) on the two empty lots immediately to one side.

Note this is a different project from the one which was unveiled last year, which would include all the existing structures between this and the railroad tracks. If everyone gets their financing in order, we may see the north side of the block almost entirely reconstructed within another few years.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Looked over the Historic Review Commission's presentation. Most of it is too far down in the weeds for us to discuss here - minor renovations and expansions to existing historic structures.

One thing is worth discussing though - a new 35-unit apartment building in Allegheny West. Okay, technically Central North Side, on the northern side of W North Avenue, but within the Allegheny West Historic District. It is a planned renovation of the "Stables Building", along with constructing a new-construction building (essentially integrated internally) on the two empty lots immediately to one side.

Note this is a different project from the one which was unveiled last year, which would include all the existing structures between this and the railroad tracks. If everyone gets their financing in order, we may see the north side of the block almost entirely reconstructed within another few years.

Technically The Stables is not part of the Allegheny West Historic District which only covers the 900 block of W. North but it has its own specific designation as a historic structure. Other than that I can't say anything about the project due to my minor involvement in it.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

The Wabash Terminal was at least justifiable in that it was gutted by fire.

But I would also add the East End Savings and Trust Building, which used to be next to the Highland Building in East Liberty:

Agreed. I almost added that one too. I have that photo of it on post #1 of this development thread to show what used to be next to the Highland Building.

[AFW523]

Milhaus 40th and Butler Master Plan

Thoughts:

- The Rite Aid and UPMC Family Center are still slated to stay put, meaning the whole concept of connecting the streets basically falls apart. The sea of parking at the main intersection remains. The slides don't seem to correlate from one to the other, as slide 8 has a leader arrow pointing at the lot with "Mixed Use Retail Presence Fronting Butler Street" aimed specifically at that parking area, but then on the next slide, illustrates that the parking will remain. There is a statement in the minutes stating "There have been discussions to move them to more urban buildings on the site. However, for this stage of the project they are staying where they are."

- They brought Trans in to do a traffic impact study which includes a lot of improvements to the signaling and lane structure that already ought to be on the drawing board, development or not. I for one don't look at high-density projects like this and the neighboring Ft. Willow and shudder thinking about increased traffic problems. I invite the problem and hope that a new critical mass of supposed tax paying residents will have the resolve and political capital to collectively bargain for a solution to the problem. Connecting Willow from 6th Ward to 9th Ward would be a net positive in my opinion. I always despised that one of the busiest epicenters of vehicle traffic has a self-imposed congestion choke point when a relatively easy means of relief exists. That would benefit the people who live closest and inconvenience the people using the 40th Street Bridge the most.

-The shuttle concept detailed on pages 22-24 would be helpful, no doubt. But in reading the minutes, it sounds like that is pie in the sky, without much detail or thought into the execution.

-The design is average. It's just conceptual drawings at this point. If it leaned towards the Lot 24 flavor (which I'm kind of getting in one of the drawings) that would be vastly preferred over that obfuscating, multi-colored development they put on Butler already.

-Some of the notes seems to say they will preserve the Arsenal wall and the 1866 office as is. If they touch it, the locals will freak.

-Small mention of a grocery store concept being included as well, but again that is mostly wishful thinking.

[Evergrey]

This whole time I was envisioning that ridiculously oversized RiteAid parking lot disappearing... shocking and disappointing.

[eschaton]

I would hazard a guess that the Rite-Aid location will eventually be razed as well. Perhaps it's not in the cards yet because one or both of the tenants has a long-term lease at the site? Or it could be just because the revenue stream is decent and they see no reason to upset the apple cart until everything else is built out. They certainly wouldn't actually move the tenants - they'd get higher rates with new construction which the existing tenants would almost certainly not be willing or able to pay.