Category Archive: City Living
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Foundations Aid Pittsburgh YWCA’s Green Roof
By Bill Zlatos
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, June 17, 2010The YWCA is getting a green roof, part of a campaign by charitable foundations to make Downtown more environmentally friendly.
“We’ve seen an increasing number of green roofs in Pittsburgh in the past three years, some of which are Downtown,” said Aurora Sharrard, director of innovation for the Pittsburgh Green Building Alliance.
When its roof is completed, the YWCA will join the Highmark Building, Fifth Avenue Place and the Heinz 57 Center among Downtown buildings with green roofs, she said. The Allegheny County Office Building also is installing one.
Green roofs use plants to soak up rain and reduce runoff, cut heating and air conditioning costs, make the building quieter and improve air quality.
Reducing runoff is especially important in Allegheny County because storm and sewage overflow is released into the rivers during hard rains.
“We want an environmentally responsible green roof,” said Carmelle Nickens Phillips, the YWCA’s vice president of development and communications. “It provides a lot of benefits — a longer material lifespan, energy savings, sound insulation, and it’s really compatible with the neighborhood.”
Phillips cited neighboring Point Park University’s $244 million Academic Village. The university’s plan includes street improvements and tree plantings on Boulevard of the Allies at the end of July and converting the old YMCA building on the boulevard into a Student and Convocation Center. The university completed a dance studio that has a gold certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, from the U.S. Green Building Council.
“We’re very excited about continuing our part of neighborhood enhancements that are green-based and are pleased to know that other neighbors are doing so as well,” said Point Park spokeswoman Mary Ellen Solomon.
The cost of the YWCA roof is $1.1 million. Its building on Wood Street is 42 years old.
The Richard King Mellon Foundation gave the YWCA $125,000 and the Eden Hall Foundation gave $50,000 — raising the total amount from foundations to nearly $400,000. The Mellon Foundation agreed to provide a challenge grant within the next 18 months, and the Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program will provide $500,000.
Scott Izzo, director of the Mellon Foundation, declined comment. Officials with Eden Hall could not be reached.
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Study Offers 6 Options for Mellon Arena
By Jeremy Boren
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, June 17, 2010Demolishing Mellon Arena would make way for a mix of new homes and high-end office space covering nine city blocks in the lower Hill District, according to a study released Wednesday.
The 107-page report provides the first detailed look at six scenarios, which include restoring the arena to its original 1961 design; mothballing it indefinitely; preserving its unique silver dome; and razing it to build 1,191 residential units and 608,000 square feet of offices.
Representatives of the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority said last week that they favor demolishing the Igloo and allowing the Penguins to build a mixed-use development — a plan referred to as “Option 5” in the study, prepared by consultant Michael Baker Engineering of Moon.
The firm organized seven meetings and a tour of Mellon Arena for public input. The lengthy report is the result and is open to public comment and revision.
The SEA, which owns Mellon Arena, will consider comments on the report before the authority’s board of directors makes a decision on the arena’s fate, said Chris Cieslak, a consultant working with Oxford Development and the SEA.
“What we don’t want is what has happened in Portland, Oregon, where they have talked about it for nine years and the city of Portland has had to pay the holding costs on (Memorial) Coliseum,” Cieslak said. Groups have opposed razing the Pacific Northwest arena.
Penguins President David Morehouse said the team agrees with the report’s findings, which correspond to a market analysis performed by Penguins consultant AECOM.
He wants demolition of Mellon Arena to begin in a year. The team owns the rights to develop the site.
“The last thing we want to do is put an impediment in front of a developer and say: ‘We want you to put this development in but, by the way, you have to put it underneath this dome,'” Morehouse said. “The people proposing that have no developers and no money for that.”
Those trying to save the arena from destruction are surprised by the study’s release. Architect Rob Pfaffman, founder of the Reuse the Igloo group, said he wasn’t aware the full report was available until told by a reporter.
Pfaffman’s vision is to build a boutique hotel inside the arena with retail and open-air park space.
“They have gone on the record, at least with us, that they prefer Option 5,” Pfaffman said. “We don’t think the process was properly followed.”
Pfaffman’s preservation group hired its own consultant to examine alternatives to tearing down the 49-year-old arena — the National Hockey League’s oldest venue. Mellon Arena will be replaced by the $321 million Consol Energy Center when it opens in August across Centre Avenue.
Pfaffman said if the SEA was sincere about finding alternatives to demolishing Mellon Arena, the authority would conduct a more detailed study and perform an engineering analysis of the building.
Neither has occurred.
The study said that in addition to making room for office space and homes, demolishing the arena would allow three north-south streets to be built. The streets would connect Bedford and Centre avenues — roads that planners eliminated when building the arena.
Razing the arena also would provide space for 208,750 square feet of retail development; a 150-room hotel; 2,145 parking spaces; and 57,560 square feet of “public open space located along pedestrian corridors,” the study said.
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Hill District to Rediscover Itself Via ‘Greenprint’
Wednesday, June 16, 2010By Meredith Skrzypczak, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteHill District residents gathered on a street corner Tuesday as a banner hung above with the words “the village, the woods” written around a picture of the neighborhood.
Plans for community projects that will preserve and sustain the natural and built-up landscape of the Hill were unveiled before the crowd.
Some of those Hill District Greenprint projects include creating a new entrance to Cliffside Park on Cliff Street and a public plaza from Centre Avenue to Kirkpatrick and Centre and Heldman; and cleaning and repairing city steps so residents can move about easily within and outside of the neighborhood.
Terri Baltimore, vice president of neighborhood development for the Hill House Association, said residents of the Hill District should be “rejoicing.”
“A lot of us that live and work in the Hill know the beauty of the neighborhood.”
Phyllis Jackson, 53, has lived on the Hill most of her life and said the projects will bring a new sense of pride to the community.
“We’re trying to put value back in the land,” said Walter Hood, principal of Hood Design and lead consultant for the Hill District Greenprint initiative.
Mr. Wood, who called the Hill one of the greenest pieces of landscape in Pittsburgh, is working with the existing landscape and developing projects that will sustain and transform it.
A Hill District resident for most of her life, Renee Pritchett, 60, said it helps to see the plans. And while there is still work to be done, she said she’s excited that residents can finally start looking ahead with hope for the community.
“Because of outside (negative) influences, it was hard to capture the hope that this brings,” she said. “That has been negated now.”
The project offers an environmentally friendly agenda that will also spark development, said Denys Candy, community development consultant and co-founder of Find the Rivers!, a group that works to develop green spaces in the neighborhood. Most of the projects will hopefully begin within months, he said.
Ms. Jackson said the projects are long overdue, but is happy efforts are finally getting under way.
“We’re doing something today.”
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Fund Set Up to Pay for Pittsburgh Monument Maintenance
By Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Last updated: 1:33 pmPittsburgh City Council today approved setting up a trust fund to bankroll maintenance to monuments and war memorials in the North Side.
Establishing the account was part of several bills introduced last week by Council President Darlene Harris after people and veterans groups complained that many of the markers had fallen into disrepair.
Harris set aside $40,000 from money left in a 2001 account for projects in her district and money originally dispersed in 1996 for community development for her district.
Council also approved a measure charging the city’s Public Works, Parks and Recreation and City Planning departments to prepare an inventory of the war monuments and memorials throughout the city in order to create a 10-year maintenance plan to be included in the 2011 capital budget.
There are more than a dozen monuments and war memorials in Harris’ district of 13 neighborhoods and more than 60 citywide.
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Fountains, Graffiti Wall Suggested for Mellon Park Overhaul
By Adam Brandolph
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, June 15, 2010Water fountains, more seating, new sidewalks and a graffiti wall were some of the ideas mentioned Monday night as residents met with city officials and community leaders to plan for a major overhaul of Mellon Park in Shadyside.
Despite recently completed work and projects in the planning stage, the meeting at the Third Presbyterian Church in Shadyside brought together interested parties in a single setting for the first time since the original plan was completed in 2002.
“We know this is a park for Shadyside, Squirrel Hill and Point Breeze. … But it’s also a park for Homewood, East Liberty, East Pittsburgh … and people who get off buses to enjoy this park,” said City Councilman Bill Peduto.
The 35-acre park was bequeathed to the city by the Mellon family estate. Its location at the intersection of Penn and Fifth avenues makes the park easily accessible by public transportation.
Recent upgrades include new lighting and a public art installation. Work is nearly complete on a wall garden, and officials spoke last night of new restrooms and a spray park for children.
“Designing a process for a master plan depends on what you want to get out of it,” Susan Radermacher, curator for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, told about 60 people at the meeting. “Always, it should start looking at the history of the place, how it’s being used today and what we’d like to see moving forward.”
Residents voiced concern over noise from the park and limited parking.
“I really hope they can take advantage of all the beauty and the great location of the park,” said Marie Schnitzer of Shadyside. “It’s a wonderful community asset and I think residents not only have plenty of suggestions, but probably the answers.”
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SEA Consultants Advise Razing Mellon Arena
By Adam Brandolph
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, June 10, 2010Consultants for the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority recommended in a draft report sent to the state Bureau of Historic Preservation that Mellon Arena be demolished and the 28-acre Uptown site be developed, SEA officials confirmed Wednesday.
The report, according to Chris Cieslak, a consultant working with Oxford Development and the SEA, “evaluates several alternatives,” but concludes that the Penguins’ plan to demolish the arena and construct a mixed-use development on the site would have the greatest economic benefit to the region. A full copy of the report, which was sent to the preservation bureau last month, was not available.
Representatives from two groups seeking alternatives to demolition walked out of last night’s closed-door meeting with SEA officials and other interested parties because they said the historic preservation process is not being followed.
“Their process is designed to divide and conquer,” said architect Rob Pfaffman. “The democratic process is being badly managed and badly executed.”
The SEA has hosted six other closed-door meetings that included developers and preservationists. A public meeting was held in the lower Hill District last month.
The $321 million Consol Energy Center is set to open across the street from the 49-year-old arena this summer. The main tenant, the Penguins, own the rights to develop the property.
Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato and other public officials have said Mellon Arena should be demolished to create room for retail and housing developments. The Sports & Exhibition Authority — whose members are appointed by the mayor and county executive — has the final say on what will happen but has not made public any decision.
The preservation bureau has 30 days to review the draft report, while a consulting firm hired by the two groups seeking alternatives to demolition completes its own study.
“Everybody’s trying to beat the clock now,” said Todd Poole, managing principal of 4Ward Planning, representing Preservation Pittsburgh and ReUse the Igloo. “Obviously, I think from the standpoint of my clients, they would prefer that the process not be rushed.”
Poole hopes to have a “fully fleshed-out analysis that covers all the bases that we’ve discussed to this point” by early July. Poole said the SEA consultant’s plan falls short of a full analysis of what could be done with the arena. He said adding more retail space to an area with vacancies is a poor idea.
Gary J. English, a Penn Hills resident who filed for the Igloo’s historic preservation and has attended the SEA’s closed-door meetings, wants Allegheny County voters to decide the fate of the arena with a ballot initiative.
“I think the whole process is a farce,” English said. “They had one public meeting in the Hill District, but (the arena’s) owned by the residents of the entire county.”
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HRC Gives Conditional Nod to Apartments in Old Uptown School
Thursday, June 03, 2010By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteThe Historic Review Commission Wednesday conditionally approved the plans of an investment group to renovate the former Fifth Avenue High School, Uptown, into 65 rental lofts.
Casey Steiner and Jonathan Hill, on behalf of the new owner, an investment partnership called LMS 5th LP, said they propose to restore the exterior to national historic standards and build a new parking lot of two levels, the higher about 3.5 feet above sidewalk level on the Fifth Avenue side to be accessible to the handicapped.
Provided financing “falls into place,” Mr. Steiner said, work on the 5th Avenue School Lofts could be under way by fall. “We’re pretty confident.”
The market, he said, is graduate students, empty nesters, people who work Downtown, in Oakland, at Mercy Hospital and Duquesne University.
The commission’s conditions are that the development partners provide more detail of the composition of concrete facing on the parking deck, screening of the deck and railings.
The investors provided historic planner Katherine Molnar proof of approval from the U.S. Department of the Interior, which is charged with upholding historic standards. The former school is a nationally designated historic structure, and the investment will receive federal historic tax credits.
Mr. Steiner, president of Impakt Development, said the partnership paid $640,000 last year for the building from Excel Kitchens, which operated out of a small part of the school, which was built in 1894, closed in 1976 and was otherwise empty that long.
In other matters, the commission approved Eat’n Park Hospitality Group’s plan to build a restaurant in Schenley Plaza, nearest where Forbes Avenue and Pennant Place meet.
The building will have two living walls, a green roof on which herbs and vegetables will be grown for the restaurant and a rain barrel will collect water. It will be one-story, built of limestone, red cedar, a metal canopy, glass and stacked stone. Facing the park, it will have a “transitional patio” — covered but without walls, said Mark Broadhurst of the Eat’n Park Hospitality Group. It has not been named but will not be called Eat’n Park, he said.
The project is being financed by the hospitality group, said Mr. Broadhurst. The group will lease from the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.
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Discover the scope of Western Pennsylvania history while walking
By Deborah Deasy
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, March 19, 2010Nothing beats sightseeing on foot when it comes to discovering Downtown Pittsburgh.
“It’s hard to look up and see the full height of a building when you are in a car or bus — and, so
often, distinguishing elements of a building are at the top,” says Louise Sturgess, executive
director of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation.
“We have a very intact city with a streetscape that dates to 1784, and it’s on a little triangular
piece of land that’s very walk-able,” Sturgess says.
To showcase the area’s crazy quilt of historic structures, Pittsburgh History and Landmarks
Foundation invites people to sign up for a smorgasbord of upcoming weekly and monthly tours –
– most free — and special events.
Offerings range from a dinner tour of the Twentieth Century Club in Oakland to a walking tour
of Wilkinsburg.
“We want to get people out of their chairs and outside,” Sturgess says.
The Wilkinsburg tour, for example, will showcase the efforts to revitalize and preserve historic
buildings in the borough.
“We are doing major work in Wilkinsburg,” Sturgess says.Other upcoming events include an invitation-only dinner tour of Oakmont Country Club, and an
evening reception at the Negley-Gwinner House in Shadyside, built in 1870 for Civil War
veteran and attorney William B. Negley.
People may attend either or both events by joining the Landmarks Heritage Society with a
$1,000 donation to the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
Plenty of free tours, however, are available, including guided walking tours of Downtown from
noon to 1 p.m. every Friday, from May through September.
“We feel it’s an important part of our mission to offer free walking tours,” says Sturgess, who
plans to lead a couple of the new “Segway Golden Triangle Tours,” set for 10 to 11 a.m.
Saturdays in June and July. “The idea is (that) Segway will provide the equipment, but we will
train and provide the tour guides.”
Foundation tours generally attract diverse participants of all ages, including college students and
professionals on lunch hours. In 2009, more than 12,000 people participated in the foundation’s
tours and educational programs.
“On our walking tours, our goal is to have 10 people for one tour guide,” Sturgess says.
“The value of having a real tour guide — as opposed to a cell phone, or virtual reality game — is
that the tour guide does engage the group of people in conversation,” Sturgess says. “We’re
always asking people in our tour groups to share what they know, and to add to the
conversation.”
The tour schedule opens this weekend with two sold-out tours of the City-County Building,
Allegheny County Courthouse and former jail. Sturgess hopes to offer the same tour again in
upcoming months to accommodate the overflow of those interested in it.
SOME UPCOMING WALKING EVENTS
(also available online at www.phlf.org)
Twentieth Century Club Lecture, Tour and Dinner: 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. May 12; 4201 Bigelow Blvd., Oakland. Admission: $35 for members and students; $50 non-members
Segway Golden Triangle Tours: 10 to 11 a.m. June 5, 12, 19, 26, and July 3, 10, 17, 24, 31.
Meet at Freight House Shops (near Smithfield Street Bridge entrance), Station Square
Admission: $55 per person (You must be 18 years or older).
Bus Tour to Historic Harmony, Butler County: 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 28. Meet at Freight House Shops entrance, opposite the parking garage, Station Square. Admission to be
announced.
Wilkinsburg Walking Tour: 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 11. Meet at Jean’s Southern Cuisine, 730 Penn Ave. Admission: Free to members; $20 non-members.Market and Fifth Downtown Walking Tour: 2 to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 25. Meet at PNC’s Triangle
Park, Fifth Avenue and Liberty Avenue, Downtown. Admission: $10 members; $20 nonmembers.
Who Wants to Go? Wheeling, W.V. in October: If enough people are interested, PHLF will
plan a full-day bus trip to Wheeling, including tours of several private homes.
For questions and reservations about all the events, except the Segway tours, contact Mary Lu
Denny at 412-471-5808, ext. 527, or marylu@phlf.org. For the Segway reservations, e-mail
leo@mediainmotionpa.com or call 724-972-4316FREE WALKING TOURS
Grant Street & More: noon to 1 p.m. May 7, 14, 21, 28. Meeting at Grant Street and Sixth
Avenue, Omni William Penn Hotel entrance.
Market Square Area: noon to 1 p.m. June 4, 11, 18, 25. Meet at PNC’s Triangle Park at
Liberty Avenue and Fifth Avenue.
Penn-Liberty Cultural District: noon to 1 p.m. July 2, 9, 16, 23, 30. Meet at Katz Plaza, Penn
Avenue and Seventh Street.
Fourth Avenue & PPG Place: noon to 1 p.m. Aug. 6, 13, 20 and 27. Meet at Fourth Avenue
and Smithfield Street.
Bridges & River Shores: noon to 1 p.m. Sept. 3, 10, 17, 24. Meet at 107 Sixth St., in front of
the Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel.
Oakland Civic Center: noon to 1 p.m. Oct. 1, 8, 15, 22, 29. Meet by dinosaur at Forbes
Avenue and Schenley Drive Extension.
Reservations need to be made at least one day before each event. Contact Mary Lu Denny,
412-471-5808, ext. 527, or marylu@phlf.org.
Deborah Deasy can be reached at ddeasy@tribweb.com or 412-320-7989.