Category Archive: Architecture & Architects
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Preservation group takes control of Market Square block
By Diana Nelson Jones,Pittsburgh Post-GazetteMonday, April 28, 2008The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has joined forces with N&P Properties to control the development of almost a block of buildings on Market Street, between Fifth Avenue and Market Square, Downtown.
Two five-story buildings in that block are now shells in the process of renovation into seven apartments, and a third will join the other two as retail space on the sidewalk level.
The foundation last week bought the Thompson Bakery building, which now houses the restaurant Ciao Baby, and N&P bought the Buhl Building at the entrance to Market Street at Fifth Avenue and gave the foundation an easement in perpetuity to protect the architectural integrity and terra-cotta facade.
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Getty Foundation grant funds study of IUP’s heritage
by Laura Kingsbury/Editor in Chief
The PennApril 25, 2008
Thanks to a $100,000 Campus Heritage grant from the Getty Foundation, IUP’s historic buildings and landscapes are being studied to ensure the preservation of the campus’ rich history.Since its creation in 1984, the Getty Foundation has worked toward fulfilling a philanthropic mission of “supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the understanding and preservation of the visual arts locally and throughout the world,” according to its Web site, getty.org.
“The university was invited to participate in a historic review of our landscape and historic buildings built prior to 1950,” said Bob Marx, IUP’s executive director of facilities operations, engineering and capital planning. “We then had the opportunity to qualify for the Getty project and submitted a proposal and other materials, working in conjunction with the university relations division.”
In order to begin the historic review, IUP has contracted with the Pittsburgh Landmarks Foundation, which will perform studies on the various buildings and landscapes and then offer suggests for preservation by March.
In addition, Marx also said the suggestions that result from the study will help IUP’s facilities team move forward with renovations while still keeping consistent with the heritage.
Recently, PLF has performed similar studies at Grove City College, Allegheny College, Geneva College and Slippery Rock University, said Eugene Matta, PLF’s director of real estate and special developments programs. Currently, studies are in the works at Seton Hill University, Washington and Jefferson and California University of Pennsylvania in addition to IUP, said Eugene Matta.
“It’s important to note that this is not to replace or question any development plan that the university may have,” Matta said. “The two things should and can coexist amicably.”
In terms of IUP’s buildings, a team of architects and historians are surveying and getting familiar with many structures that are more than 50 years old, said Ellis Schmidlapp, president of Landmarks Design Associates, who will be providing the PLF’s long-term preservation suggestions.
The buildings currently being reviewed are Breezedale and Fisher Auditorium as well as Clark, Keith, Waller, McElhaney, Sutton, Uhler, Leonard, Whitmyre and Wilson halls.
“An important part of saving old buildings is planning,” Schmidlapp said. “It’s also finding a new use, because a building has to be useful to be preserved.”
An example, he said, could be Waller Hall, which when was originally designed in 1926 to be a gymnasium but is now used for the theater department.
In addition to finding uses for the buildings and ensuring they are up to modern codes, PLF also focuses on their lighting and overall visual appeal.
More specifically, Thomas Keffer, PLF’s property and construction manager, takes photographs of campus at night to survey both for beauty and for safety.
In doing this, he said he looks for ways to brighten up the campus by adding more lighting to sculptures, architecture and landscapes.
“You can light the trees, instead of the sidewalks; it’s much more beautiful that way,” said Ron Block, the project’s design consultant and landscape historian.
For the PLF’s report, Block is also examining IUP’s landscapes, especially those in the Oak Grove.
“If you ask students what their favorite thing about campus is, they will probably say the Oak Grove,” he said. “So we recognize the importance of it, and even if you are running out of space, you don’t want to build anything there. Some of the trees were there before the buildings.”
However, in order to make these suggestions fit the atmosphere of campus, both IUP and the PLF are stressing the importance of student input.
“Students can give input and articulate what they see as a building’s purpose,” Schmidlapp said.
Marx agreed that it is important to get students, faculty and staff interested in learning and writing about IUP’s heritage.
To get involved with this project, students are encouraged to contact Marx at bmarx@iup.edu or Matta at eugene@phlf.org.
© Copyright 2008 The Penn
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Vacant North Side church may find new life
By Jim Ritchie
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, March 25, 2008The North Side church nearly sold to a Manhattan developer and twice threatened with demolition has another chance at salvation.Talks began this month over whether the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh would sell the vacant St. Nicholas Church to a Croatian group that wants to preserve the 108-year-old building. It housed the first Croatian ethnic parish in the United States.Diocesan officials “encouraged” the Croatian American Cultural and Economic Alliance, based in Scott, to submit a proposal to buy the building with the intent of making it a museum and not to revive it as a church, according to the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which spoke with the diocese on the matter.
The building along Route 28 closed in December 2004 and the parish was merged with a sister parish, also called St. Nicholas, in Millvale.
The diocese raised concerns that the space would be rented for special events where alcohol could be served, the foundation said.Former parishioners are hopeful they will buy the building but realize it would not return as a functioning part of the diocese.
“The church itself, as a Catholic Church, is not going to come back,” said Robert Sladack, a former parishioner from Reserve.
Selling to the Croatian group was not the first choice of the diocese. It chose not to accept the group’s initial offer in 2005 of $250,000. It then negotiated with a Manhattan developer, the Follieri Group.
Follieri proposed redeveloping it and several other vacant Catholic buildings in the region. Negotiations fell apart in the fall after an unrelated legal battle involving Follieri publicly unfolded.
The Rev. Ron Lengwin, spokesman for the diocese, referred questions to the Rev. Larry Smith, pastor of the St. Nicholas parish. Smith did not return messages seeking comment.
Messages seeking comment from Marion Vujevich, who represents the Croatian group, were not returned. Vujevich, of Mt. Lebanon, is one of five honorary consuls for Croatia based in the United States, making him a top-ranking representative recognized by the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia to the United States.
Pittsburgh has a strong Croatian presence. The Croatian Fraternal Union in Monroeville is the largest Croatian organization outside of Croatia.
St. Nicholas’ recent history has been controversial.
PennDOT initially called for the building to be razed or moved when it designed the reconstruction of East Ohio Street. Outcry from parishioners and historic preservation groups caused PennDOT to modify its plans, ultimately sparing the building.
The building faced a similar threat in 1920 when the city decided to widen East Ohio Street and called on building owners to relocate or move their buildings. The parish opted to move the church, by lifting it on jacks, about 20 feet back to accommodate the road, according to the diocese.
Jim Ritchie can be reached at jritchie@tribweb.com or 412-320-7933.
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For 3 years, Lord & Taylor sits vacant – Downtown’s former Mellon Bank building a tough sell
Monday, March 17, 2008
By Mark Belko,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The last time a customer stepped inside the Lord & Taylor building, Downtown, Luke Ravenstahl was serving his first year on City Council and a guy by the name of Roethlisberger was in his rookie season with the Steelers.It’s been more than three years now since the J.J. Gumberg Co. purchased the former department store, which closed in November 2004 amid declining sales and shopper indifference.
Today, the elegant granite building, a National Historic Landmark and former Mellon Bank, stands as testament to ex-Mayor Tom Murphy’s failed strategy for revitalizing the central business district but little else.
As redevelopment activity buzzes a block away, the Lord & Taylor building sits empty in the heart of the Downtown retail corridor, its lights off and locked gates blocking the entrances.
It has been that way since Gumberg purchased the building in February 2005 for $2.5 million, a song compared with the $11.8 million the city sank into the deal that brought Lord & Taylor to Pittsburgh five years earlier.
Gumberg came in with hopes of landing another department store or general merchandise retailer or perhaps even multiple ones to fill the 150,000 square feet of space. There was talk of a Target discount store or even an upscale Nordstrom, which subsequently settled at Ross Park Mall.
None of it has happened. Three years later, Gumberg has yet to land a tenant.
On its Web site, Gumberg has been marketing the “Shoppes at Smithfield,” described as an “inviting, modern, three-tiered open retail environment,” one “designed with flexibility to accommodate today’s most desirable fashion retailers, lifestyle shops and fine dining.”
Fred Reitano, Gumberg executive vice president, said Shoppes at Smithfield was “just a name we were thinking of using … if we decided to use [the building] as a retail venue.”
Mr. Reitano would not disclose any of the prospective retailers or office users Gumberg has met with over the last couple of years but added that the company is willing to take its time in finding a tenant.
“We always felt the Lord & Taylor building … is really the best location within the Downtown central business district. I know we have been patient with our selection of tenancy to ensure that we bring the appropriate retail to Downtown. That’s what we’re looking to do,” he said.
Mr. Ravenstahl, now Pittsburgh’s mayor, said the inability to find a tenant for such a high-profile building has been frustrating.
“It is something right now when you look at it, you wish something was there and a good use was there. But I also believe [with] the momentum … happening in Pittsburgh that current vacancy will someday be an asset. I think it can potentially be a good opportunity for Downtown,” he said.
Arthur Ziegler, president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, said he is not surprised by what has transpired. Mr. Ziegler and other local preservationists loudly protested the renovations that turned the former bank’s majestic open interior, with its marble columns and floors, into a multilevel department store.
“We said it would be a tragedy when Murphy wanted to destroy that space. The building’s significance was not only its magnificent exterior but its magnificent and unique interior. I certainly think what happened to it was tragic. Since it so far hasn’t worked, that only compounds the situation,” he said.
While lower Fifth Avenue is humming with the redevelopment of another former department store, Lazarus-Macy’s, into shops, condominiums and offices, and the conversion of the old G.C. Murphy’s store into apartments, retail and fitness space, the Lord & Taylor building has resisted reuse.
Local real estate brokers say the building poses unique challenges for Gumberg in marketing it for retail or office use.
Chief among them is that it is ill-suited for merchandising. The high windows worked well for a bank, but aren’t desirable for retail. Few of the windows are at street level and those that are are narrow rectangles, not exactly effective for store displays.
“One of the things that retailers look for is people seeing the merchandise. The building provides certain challenges to that,” said Mike Edwards, president and chief executive officer of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. “When you walk by, you don’t say, ‘Oh, that’s a retail building.’ ”
Even Stanley Gumberg, the company’s chairman, conceded the structure posed a challenge when he discussed the purchase in a 2004 interview.
“I’ll bet you couldn’t find another building with this configuration if you stood on your head,” he said at the time.
And while the structure may fit a single user, it is far less effective for multiple tenants, particularly given the limitations on altering its exterior because of its status as a city historic structure, brokers said.
“It worked well as a single-use department store. Its accessibility from the street for multi-tenant purposes is challenged as well as the ability to enhance the storefront presence because it’s a historic building,” said Kevin Langholz, principal of Langholz-Wilson Ellis Inc., a real estate company.
Some said another factor may be the woebegone state of parts of the Fifth and Forbes retail corridor. While lower Fifth Avenue will be home to the new Three PNC Plaza and the Lazarus and Murphy’s redevelopments, other areas are in need of an overhaul. That could affect the ability to market the Lord & Taylor property, brokers said.
“If anything gives Downtown a black eye, frankly, it’s a lot of our rundown areas or stuff that is just behind the times. You walk down Fifth and Forbes, they’re not attractive. They’re not pleasant places to shop,” said David Glickman, vice president of the Retail Group for Grubb & Ellis Co.
Mr. Ravenstahl believes that once the PNC, Lazarus and Murphy’s projects are finished, they will be “part of what we need to change the energy down there.”
“I won’t deny the fact that there are challenges along that corridor and that’s a significant piece of the puzzle when people come in and take a look at redeveloping a particular parcel,” he said.
He remains optimistic that a tenant will be found for the Lord & Taylor building.
“I think it will happen. It’s just a matter of being patient and taking things one step at a time,” he said.
Correction/Clarification: (Published Mar. 20, 2008) The Lord & Taylor building, Downtown, is a city historic structure, not a National Historic Landmark, as this story incorrectly stated when originally published on Mar. 17, 2008. To change the building’s exterior, the owner must get approval from the city Historic Review Commission.
Mark Belko can be reached at mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.
First published on March 17, 2008 at 12:00 am -
Getty II – Campus Heritage Grants, 2007
Eugene Matta
PHLF News
March 7, 2008Under the auspices of the J. Paul Getty Foundation’s Campus Heritage Grants 2007 program, conservation work continues at California University of Pennsylvania, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Seton Hill University and Washington & Jefferson College.
PHLF’s team of experts includes a historic architect, horticulturist and landscape designer, architectural historian, and an expert in the construction and rehabilitation of historic buildings.
The work is further supported by PHLF’s administrative staff including its Information Officer and Project Manager.
The collection of four colleges, which includes two private colleges and two public universities, is a significant cross section of the cultural and architectural history of Western Pennsylvania’s academic heritage.
Preservation plans for these institutions are being completed with significant participation by the academic and local communities and will broaden the understanding of the importance of these regional resources and spread the preservation and conservation message throughout the region.
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Door to History: New owners of old Union Trust Building hope to find use for bank vault
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
By Sally Kalson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
When the Union Trust Building opened Downtown in 1923, its safe deposit vault in the basement was reported to be the largest and strongest in the world — 80 feet long, 45 feet wide, 8 2/3 feet high, with walls 20 inches thick.
Now, 85 years and several bank mergers and sales later, the vault is still an impressive, if musty, catacomb that harkens back to another era. With its rows of burnished bronze cubbies, clanking gates and massive circular 55-ton door, it could easily be imagined as the set of an old bank heist movie starring James Cagney or Edward G. Robinson.
There’s almost nothing left there to steal now. Citizens Bank, which took over the vault from Mellon Bank after buying the latter’s consumer and small business operation in 2001, began notifying depositors several months ago to empty their lock boxes because it was vacating the premises.
Only about 1,800 of 12,000 boxes were in use at that point. Most have been cleared out by their owners, although some unclaimed boxes remain. On March 21, the vault will officially close; any leftovers will be drilled and moved to the Citizens branch across the street for safekeeping while the bank looks for their owners.
Citizens Bank president Ralph Papa, who was with Mellon for many years before the sale, said there was no need to keep the Union Trust vault in operation.
“We have more than 90 branches around the area, and the vast majority have safe deposit boxes,” he said. “There are lots of places for people to move the contents.”
Still, the closing of the storied vault sounds like the end of an era. But the Union Trust Building’s new owners say they are well aware of the basement’s historic nature.
“We’re looking at a number of uses,” said Rick Barreca, CEO of the Mika Realty Group of Los Angeles, which last month paid $24.1 million for the 11-story property.
“Our hope is that we can work with another financial institution in the future that might make use of the vault,” Mr. Barreca said. “It’s really a work of art, a unique facility that I think is irreplaceable. We have a large commitment to the building, and the vault is one of the benefits of owning it.” …..
That’s a sensible attitude, because it’s hard to see how the structure could be removed without tremendous cost and disruption. Mika is considering excavating under the building for a parking garage, but Mr. Barreca said “there’s plenty of room for that without touching the vault.”
Sparse history
Much has been written about the Union Trust Building from the ground up. The edifice is considered by many to be Downtown’s most spectacular, with its ornate Flemish Gothic exterior, 10-story rotunda, circular skylight and the twin “chapels” on the roof that actually house elevator machinery. It takes up the entire city block bounded by Fifth and Oliver avenues, Grant Street and William Penn Place. The design is credited to F.J. Osterling, but was probably conceptualized by Pierre A. Liesch, who worked for Osterling briefly, according to the late historian James D. Van Trump. In 1973, the building was recognized as a historic landmark.
But when it comes to the underground portion, there’s very little on the historical record. However, one article from the Pittsburgh Sun newspaper, dated Nov. 21, 1932, contained a descriptive bonanza.
“Great Vault Is World’s Largest” was the Sun headline that introduced the facility to the public. The report included illustrations of the vault opening and its interior and noted that the total weight of the doors and equipment was 5 million pounds.
The report described the vaults as “great fire, burglar, flood and mob proof strongholds,” built of “a double tier of interlocked heavy steel beams, surrounded by and imbedded in solid concrete, lined with the hardest and toughest armor plate.
“Every inch is guarded by electric alarms, and every protective device developed by human genius and skill has been installed to make absolutely safe the possessions deposited in it.
“The material is finished in solid bronze, and the boxes are 26 inches deep and are made of open hearth steel, the doors being one-half inch thick. The portable boxes are aluminum and were made by the Aluminum Company of America.”
The article went on to recommend the “impregnable trunk vault” as the ideal repository for silverware, heirlooms, valuable books and other bulky possessions.
All the more noteworthy is the fact that the vaults were retrofitted, because the building was not designed as a bank. It opened in 1917 as the Union Arcade, built by Henry Clay Frick on land he purchased from the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. At the time, it claimed to be the largest arcade in the world, with 240 shops on the first four floors and 760 office suites on the upper levels.
Six years later, the Union Trust Co. took over more than two acres of floor space, put its name on the edifice and its vault under it. The retrofitting was done by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, successor of D. H. Burnham & Co., architects of the Frick and Oliver buildings.
The newspaper described the vaults as occupying two levels — nearly 28,000 square feet on the safe deposit floor, and some 20,000 square feet on “the silver vault floor” for paintings, bullion and other heavy possessions.
That left the folks at Citizens scratching their heads, because the vault as it exists today has only one floor. “Nobody seems to know about that second floor,” said spokeswoman Angela Wagner.
The vault is changed in other ways as well. The open central area depicted in the Sun’s 1923 illustration is now crammed full of deposit boxes that were forklifted over from Mellon Bank’s Smithfield Street location after that building was sold in 1999 and made into a Lord & Taylor department store that closed five years later.
It’s hard to say for sure if the vault anteroom floor is original. The surface comes up higher than the bottom of the vault door, so the floor must be dropped by means of a long pole and lever to clear the way for swinging the enormous door open or closed. That may be depicted by the curved line in the illustration, but it’s difficult to tell.
The Union Trust Co. merged with Mellon Bank in 1946 to form Mellon National Bank & Trust Co. The building was rechristened Two Mellon Bank Center in the 1990s, but most Pittsburghers never stopped calling it the Union Trust Building.
Mellon — now Bank of New York Mellon — left the premises in 2006, and the structure is virtually empty except for Larrimor’s on the street-level corner of Grant and Fifth. Mika Realty hopes the high-end men’s clothier will remain, and CB Richard Ellis is charged with attracting new retail and office tenants.
As for the vault, it’s not going anywhere.
Sally Kalson can be reached at skalson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1610.
First published on March 12, 2008 at 12:00 am
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St. Nicholas North Side
PHLF News
March 7, 2008St Nicholas Church on East Ohio Street was closed several years ago by the Roman Catholic Diocese and merged with St. Nicholas Millvale.
A group envisioned saving the church and using it as a Croatian Heritage Museum, a goal that we were glad to see set forth. Unfortunately no agreement could be reached and the Follier group from Italy, indicated that it wanted to buy the church property.
However, that group is not going forward with its plan, and PHLF contacted the Diocese at the request of the Croatian Heritage Group to see if it could be for sale again for that purpose.
The Diocese encouraged a proposal to purchase the building for a Museum, but not for church purposes, particularly if the space is also rented for special events where alcohol might be sold.
We hope that the group can consider the Museum and events purposes only so that the buildings and its marvelous interiors can be saved and continue in a public use.
PHLF, the Croatian organization leaders, Preservation Pittsburgh and others participated in the efforts to redesign the proposed Rt. 28 Expressway so that the church could be saved and would have a private entrance road to it.
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Allegheny County Courthouse 120th Symposium & Exhibition
PHLF News
March 7, 2008Friday, April 18th, 2008
To commemorate the 120th anniversary of the dedication of the Allegheny County Courthouse, Professor Drew Armstrong, director of the Architectural Studies program at the University of Pittsburgh, has organized a public symposium on ‘The Allegheny County Courthouse in Context’ that will take place on Friday, April 18th, 2008. Speakers from across the continent will address the history of the courthouse, its place in H. H. Richardson’s career, and its impact on public architecture throughout North America.Arthur Ziegler will open the conference with a brief outline of PHLF’s Allegheny County Historic Properties Committee work for several decades in guiding the restoration of the Courthouse.
September 2nd through October 16th.
A major exhibition on ‘Pittsburgh and the Architectural Sublime: H. H. Richardson’s Allegheny County Courthouse’ in the Frick Fine Arts Building will feature archival material documenting the courthouse competition and Richardson’s design process.Click here for details on the symposium.
A Bench for the Courthouse
Several years ago, we embarked on a program to replace the unattractive and randomly selected used chairs that lined the corridors of the Courthouse with sturdy wooden benches designed by County architect Sam Taylor, in the style of Richardson. Each bench costs $3,500 for Wilson and McCracken to create. They may be given to honor or memory of family and friends. To date, 21 benches have been donated out of the total of 35 that we need.
For the symposium, we are asking PHLF members and friends if they would like to either sponsor a bench in it’s entirety, or to contribute a small amount between $10 and $50 that will go toward the $3,500 fee to commission another handsome wood bench for the halls of the Courthouse to be dedicated to H. H. Richardson.. We will report on progress as we move along.