Building to be converted into office condominiums

By The Tribune-Review
Sunday, June 18, 2006

The owner of the six-story building at 610 Wood St., Downtown, plans to convert the building into office condominiums, said Loretta Taylor, an agent with Beynon & Co., who will market the building. At this time, no price has been set and potential buyers are being offered an opportunity to lease space in the building prior to purchase. Rittenhouse Commons of Philadelphia, the owner, will make improvements to the structure, such as the exterior facade and the elevator, and have a model unit available within four to six weeks. CVS Pharmacy, which occupies the ground level, will remain.

• The former Pitt-DesMoines site on Neville Island has been purchased by Frank Bryan Inc. for $1.2 million in what the company said is an expansion of the firm’s concrete operation currently on Pittsburgh’s South Side. Thomas J. Bryan III, identified as a Bryan shareholder on a deed filed in the office of Allegheny County recorder of deeds, would not disclose what type of expansion is planned nor what affect the new site would have on the Pittsburgh operation. The 16.2-acre site, located off Neville Road and along the Ohio River, was sold by CB&J Co., a Texas-based firm. Bryan has been at the South Side location since it purchased the former Dravo Corp. plant there in 1980.

• Matrix Solutions has relocated its headquarters from Ross to 901 Pennsylvania Ave., North Shore. The firm, which provides sales strategy management software for the media industry, currently has 30 business and technology professionals and has the ability to add 25 additional staff at the new office, a 15,000-square foot warehouse-style building, formerly a valve manufacturing facility.

• Burns & Scalo Real Estate Services Inc. acquired a 3.85-acre site in Starpointe Industrial Park for Miller Plastic Products Inc., and will build the 40,000 to 50,000-square-foot manufacturing and office space in the Hanover Township, Washington County complex. Construction will begin this summer.

• The 30-year transformation of East Carson Street, South Side, was the topic at the recent 2006 National Main Streets Conference in New Orleans and featured three local residents as speakers. The discussion, “Transforming a Local Neighborhood into a Regional Destination,” was by John A. Martine of Strada architectural firm, Cathy McCullom of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, and Tom Hardy, formerly with the South Side Local Development Corp.

• Old School Partners, LP, headed by Alfred E. Thomson IV, has purchased a warehouse at 10 Allegheny River Blvd., Penn Hills, for $900,000 from Fagen’s Inc., according to a deed filed in the office of Allegheny County recorder of deeds. A small portion of the property is located in Verona. Plans are to demolish the structure and build a state-of-the-art 65,000-square-foot Atlas Self-Storage facility. Two other Atlas self-storage facilities are located on Saltsburg Road, Penn Hills, and in the North Hills.

• Construction is under way on Pinehurst Village, a new carriage home community located within the Seven Oaks Country Club complex in Beaver County. There will be 39 units on 15 acres, developed by TDS Group, a carriage home specialist, said Darlene Hunter, Howard Hanna Real Estate Services New Homes South/West manager, who is marketing the units. Four models are available, starting at $198,900.

• Centria, based in Moon Township, recently received the Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence for saving $800,000 in energy costs at its Ambridge plant. Centria installed an oven system that features state-of-the-art heat exchangers to rapidly dry painted steel coils. The system made it possible to capture emissions of volatile organic compounds produced by drying paint and pump them into an incinerator to produce fuel.

Contributor: Sam Spatter

This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review