Category Archive: City Living
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Local companies in command of Fifth-Forbes development
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Sunday, January 8, 2006Local developers finally hold the keys to unlocking the economic potential of Pittsburgh’s deteriorated Fifth-Forbes retail corridor.
That’s a good thing, says Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, the preservationist organization that developed Station Square.
Ziegler has long advocated giving a variety of companies a role in developing the area in and around Fifth and Forbes avenues.
He applauds the fact that Washington County-based Millcraft Industries Inc., headed by members of the Piatt family, now has the lead in trying to find new uses for the former Lazarus-Macy’s department store, and that the J.J. Gumberg Co. of Braddock Hills owns and is spearheading efforts to redevelop the former Lord & Taylor department store building.
Ziegler also salutes Oxford Development Co.’s involvement in PNC Financial Services Group’s recently announced plan to build a $122 million office/hotel/condominium building along Fifth Avenue that will be home to Reed Smith, one of the city’s largest law firms.
“I think those are major steps and a breakthrough in efforts to develop Fifth-Forbes,” said Ziegler, who has suggested the city should copy a plan that helped Baltimore revitalize part of its downtown.
In Baltimore, an $800 million project driven mainly by private investment and fueled by historic preservation tax credits is being used to renew a 26-block area.
The city developed a package of buildings, specific uses and quality levels, and offered the packages to developers on the open market, he said.
If Pittsburgh’s leaders adopt a similar plan, more local and national developers might be persuaded to take a look at redeveloping pieces of Fifth and Forbes, Ziegler believes.
“This demonstrates the fact that there are other local developers who would possibly be willing to get involved in Fifth-Forbes if the opportunity were available,” he said, referring to the involvement of Millcraft, Oxford and Gumberg.
Three out-of-town developers have considered becoming the master developer for city-owned properties Fifth-Forbes, only to walk away, and now the private-led Pittsburgh Task Force is currently working with Madison Marquette, a company based in Washington, D.C., on a development plan for Downtown.
Ziegler has hopes that project also will be successful, but if it is not, then he believes the city should open up the field to other developers.
New Mayor Bob O’Connor already has said he would consider allowing other private developers to buy Downtown properties owned by the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority if the Madison Marquette plan fails.
In the meantime, Pittsburgh History & Landmarks has offered to help the city preserve several deteriorated buildings Downtown, including 439 Market St., an historic three-story building off Market Square.
Last month, the city’s Historic Review Commission approved a plan to preserve the unique facade of the 130-year-old structure while demolishing a majority of the rest of the building.
The plan is for the city’s engineering and construction department to shore up the building’s side walls with bracing and put up a temporary roof and rear wall that would be replaced once a development plan is in place for the area.
Landmarks, which joined with the historic preservation group Preserve Pittsburgh to support partial demolition of the building, has offered the city a no-interest loan of up to $75,000 to help pay for the work.
Real estate notes:
Funding for construction of 15 second-floor, loft-style condominiums over retail space and rehabilitation of seven houses on Penn Avenue and North Fairmount Street in the city’s Garfield neighborhood has been approved by the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. The project will get $660,000 in Neighborhood Revitalization funds. The agency also approved $2 million for Peebles Square in Wilkinsburg. These funds will be used to build 12 new single-family detached three-bedroom homes and to rehabilitate eight existing owner-occupied homes and create a regional park.
Construction activity in the six-county Pittsburgh region increased substantially in November compared to the same month last year. Total new contracts issued reached $178.3 million, a 94 percent increase over the $92.1 million a year ago, according to the Research and Analytics unit of McGraw-Hill Construction. For the 11-month period, total contracts issued reached $2 billion, an 11 percent decline from $2.26 billion for the same period a year ago.
The management office of Station Square, South Side, has relocated to Suite 317 in the Landmark Building, which is on the opposite side from where it was formerly located, said Tom Schneck II, Station Square’s director of marketing.
James P. Kelly, Grubb & Ellis vice president, has been given the job of finding tenants for the Mon Valley Community Health Center in Monessen, since the current occupant, Southwestern Pennsylvania Human Services Inc., plans to relocate 200 of its employees into the former Montgomery Ward building in Charleroi.
Wells Real Estate Investment Trust II Inc. has selected Jeremy Kronman and Tom McDonald of CB Richard Ellis/Pittsburgh to market 2000 Park Lane, a seven-story office building it purchased in North Fayette. Computer Associates International Inc., former owner of the building, will lease about 25 percent of the 231,213-square-foot building, and Fisher Scientific Co. LLC occupies about 64 percent. Brad Heming of Jones Lang LaSalle represented the seller, and Jeff Gilder of Wells Real Estate Funds represented the buyer.
Several members of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler’s Pittsburgh office participated in the sale by Simon Property Group Inc. of Cheltenham Square, a 638,098-square-foot regional shopping center north of Philadelphia. Thor Equities LLC paid $71.3 million for the property, plus assumption of an existing $54.9 million bank loan, and Chris Turner and Claudia Steeb with John Pelusi, executive managing director and managing member, were involved.
An office building at 100 Commercial St., in the Bridgeville Industrial Park, Bridgeville, has been sold by Proud Mary LLC to Great Lakes Warranty Corp. for $700,000, according to a deed filed in the office of Allegheny County Recorder of Deeds.
— Contributor: Sam SpatterRon DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
Images and text copyright © 2004 by The Tribune-Review Publishing Co.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Wilkinsburg housing project gains approval
By Sam Spatter
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, September 29, 2005Another project to improve the housing inventory in Wilkinsburg has been approved by the Allegheny County Redevelopment Authority.
The authority on Wednesday authorized the county’s Economic Development Department to move ahead on the Peebles (Street) Square project, which involves the rehabilitation or construction of 12 to 14 houses in that area.
In July, Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation joined with Wilkinsburg Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, in a separate project to revitalize housing in a six-block area near St. James Church, known as Hamnett Place neighborhood.
For the Peebles project, the authority will seek $1 million in acquisition funds from the state and apply to the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency for about $2 million to assist the developer, Action-Housing, in the project.
“About four of the houses are occupied, two by owners, but the rest are either vacant or boarded-up, or the site vacant,” said Dennis Davin, the Economic Development Department’s executive director.
The overall cost of the program is about $5.6 million, with new houses selling for about $75,000 and rehabilitated houses, $65,000. The authority plans to provide a second mortgage of about $20,000, which is paid only upon resale of the house, he said.
The Hamnett Place neighborhood project includes rehabilitation of six abandoned buildings along Jeanette Street to create opportunities for new single-family housing.
Allegheny County is providing $500,000 for the project, and the History & Landmarks Foundation, and the state, will provide matching funds.
Cathy McCollom, the foundation’s chief programs officer, estimates the cost to redo the initial six properties could range between $90,000 and $130,000 per unit.
Sam Spatter can be reached at sspatter@tribweb.com.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Baltimore-style revitalization eyed for Pittsburgh
By Sam Spatter
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, August 4, 2005Pittsburgh leaders should look to the southeast for a guide on redeveloping Fifth and Forbes avenues Downtown, the president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation said Wednesday.
The Murphy administration’s plan to enlist one developer hasn’t worked, said landmarks President Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., so the city should consider copying Baltimore’s continuing effort that has revitalized part of its downtown.
“If that single developer steps forward, that would be fine,” Ziegler told members of the Pittsburgh Rotary Club. “But so far, it has been an elusive goal. We believe the Baltimore plan that worked there very well should be examined again.”
Ziegler referred to Baltimore’s $800 million project driven mainly by private investment and fueled by historic preservation tax credits that has renewed a 26-block area over the past several years.
The city packaged buildings, determined specified uses and quality levels, and offered the packages on the open market, he said.
If Pittsburgh officials adopted a similar plan, national and local developers might be persuaded to take a look at redeveloping pieces of Fifth and Forbes, Ziegler said.
Three developers have considered becoming the master developer for Fifth-Forbes, only to walk away. Dranoff Properties of Philadelphia is the most recent.
Ziegler said he’s been approached by at least two local developers interested in Downtown redevelopment, but not the entire Fifth-Forbes corridor.
“If a major developer can’t be located, then obviously other options would have to be considered,” said Herb Burger, who is leading a private effort to revitalize the corridor. “But I believe a major developer will participate in Downtown renewal.”
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, founded in 1964, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preservation.
One of its major successes is Station Square on the Monongahela River on the South Side. The entertainment and office complex was developed in a former Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad warehouse site.
The redevelopment, which began in 1975, owes much of that success to nearly $12 million in private money provided through the Allegheny Foundation, Ziegler said. Richard M. Scaife, owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, chairs the Allegheny Foundation.
Ziegler said that many of the Downtown developments subsidized by taxpayer money — such as the Lazarus-Macy’s department store and the conversion of the former Mellon Bank headquarters into a Lord & Taylor store — have failed.
He said tax credits have helped finance the Heinz Lofts on the North Side and the Cork Factory redevelopment in the Strip District. Tax credits also could help transform the former Nabisco plant into housing in East Liberty.
Staff writer Ron DaParma contributed to this report.
Sam Spatter can be reached at sspatter@tribweb.com or .
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Landmarks group aids in Wilkinsburg
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Wednesday, July 20, 2005The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has joined an effort to preserve a number of older, abandoned buildings in Wilkinsburg.
The local foundation and community leaders say the wrecking ball is not the best way to deal with some Wilkinsburg structures that may be architecturally noteworthy or historically significant and able to be restored to worthwhile use.
Such efforts are favored by Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato as a way to help rebuild the tax base in Wilkinsburg and other financially struggling “ring” communities just outside Pittsburgh such as Braddock and Rankin, said Dennis Davin, the county’s economic development director.
“This is a very valuable and exciting relationship,” said Denise Edwards, a Wilkinsburg councilwoman and a participant in the Wilkinsburg Neighborhood Transformation Initiative. “This is an effort to retain the integrity of the community and make it economically feasible to restore this neighborhood.”
Patterned after a program used in Philadelphia, the effort is focused on revitalizing a six-block area near St. James Church known as the Hamnett Place neighborhood, said Cathy McCollom, the foundation’s chief programs officer.
As an alternative to demolition, plans are to rehabilitate six abandoned buildings along Jeanette Street and offer them for sale to create opportunities for new single-family housing.
The foundation, which is acting as developer and project manager, hopes to acquire the properties in the next several months and start work by early next year.
Two of the buildings — 520 and 522 Jeanette — will be completely restored, including interior finishes, while two others — 508 and 516 Jeanette — will undergo “shell rehab” including an exterior renovation and installation of utility connections. Interior finishes will be left for a new owner, McCollom said.
The remaining two — 517 and 524 Jeanette — which are in the worst condition, will be cleaned and their structures stabilized, with repairs for the roof, foundation and windows.
The hope is to convince other developers or individuals to acquire or restore other properties and spark additional revitalization in Wilkinsburg.
The buildings targeted for restoration have been abandoned for some time and their condition is detrimental to the rest of the neighborhood, said Wilkinsburg resident Zita Ann Berry, a member of a project steering committee comprised of about 40 to 50 people.
“There are some lovely restored houses already in Wilkinsburg,” she said. “We’ve had an influx of young people who have been updating and done wonderful things with some old Victorian houses here.”
“Wilkinsburg has many fine buildings, houses particularly,” added Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., the landmarks foundation president.
The foundation became involved about 18 months ago after residents became concerned about a development proposal that called for extensive demolition in the area, which also includes parts of Lamar, Rebecca and Whitney avenues and Mulberry Street, McCollom said.
She is a member of Allegheny County’s Vacant Property Commission, which reviews such plans in various communities.
“When I saw some of these buildings had some good bones, so to speak, I realized that rehabilitation was possible,” McCollom said.
After discussions with community officials, including Mayor Wilbert Young, a study conducted by the foundation and community volunteers identified 54 parcels in the area, of which 19 were unoccupied buildings, five were vacant lots and eight were tax delinquent.
In addition to restoration, the study recommended clearing some of those unoccupied properties for new construction, parking or green space.
An overall budget is not finalized, but McCollom estimated the cost to redo the initial six properties could range between $90,000 and $130,000 per unit.
Allegheny County has agreed to provide about $500,000 for the project, said Davin, the county’s economic development director. Matching funds will come from the Landmarks Foundation and probably the state, he said.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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For Fifth and Forbes, a place to start small and think big
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tuesday, June 28, 2005Preservation Pittsburgh wants to convert the first floor of the former Regal Shoe Co. building at Fifth and Market into a transit cafe, with office space above. It’s the work of Alden & Harlow, one of the city’s most prominent architectural firms in the early 20th century.
In a cartoon in the current New Yorker, a big man sitting at a big desk in a big city hands a folder to a smaller, weary man sitting across from him. The folder is labeled “Plan Z.”
“Of course,” the big man says, “if this one flops we’re done.”
Somebody ought to warn the little guy: Beware of a big man with a big plan.
Three years and three months from the day Mayor Tom Murphy announced Plan C, his revised Fifth and Forbes renewal project, we’ve got zip. In fact we’ve got a lot less zip than we had when the massive, demolition-oriented Plan A was hatched in October 1999. Back then, there were one or two empty storefronts; now there are many more as property and business owners wait for the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, which owns several properties in the district, to make a move.
When Carl Dranoff, the most recent potential developer, pulled out a few weeks ago, there was no rush to announce Plan D. Come January, the mayor and his men will move on. The empty storefronts will be hanging around for some time.
There’s still a frightening amount of alphabet left in Fifth and Forbes, but with a new administration next year, there are new opportunities for fresh ideas.
Here’s one: Preservation Pittsburgh wants to put a “transit cafe” in a great old building at the corner of Fifth and Market. It doesn’t look like much now, but in its day it was quite the place, an elegant little shoe showroom designed by Alden & Harlow for the Regal Shoe Co., one of a chain of Boston-based stores.
Of human scale and quaint antecedent, Regal Shoe was one of two buildings inspired by the English Arts and Crafts movement that the firm designed Downtown in the first decade of the 20th century. The other, the former White Dog Cafe, was among the nine structures sacrificed for the new Lazarus store in 1996. The cafe had been remodeled, but ah, what it once was and could have been again.
We have a second chance with the Regal Shoe building, which has had a happier fate. Over time its canopy was removed and some of its windows were covered over, but its integrity has not been greatly compromised.
Downtowns need low-rise buildings like this, buildings with a social and architectural history to anchor the modern office towers, and Fifth and Forbes provide them. Plan A disregarded them, calling for the removal of 62 buildings and acquiring them by eminent domain if necessary.
But massive demolition wasn’t the only troubling aspect of Plan A. Just as wrong-headed was its intent to wrestle ownership from dozens of local and often longtime entrepreneurs and concentrate ownership in the hands of a single developer, sending all of the profits out town. Fine for a suburban mall, but this is not the way cities work. Urban retail lasts longest when it is steady and incremental, supported by government policies that understand its organic, symbiotic nature.
If you’ve ever waited for a bus or been panhandled at the bustling corner of Fifth and Market, you don’t need me to tell you how good a transit cafe sounds. A place to come in out of the cold and heat and rain, pick up a coffee and a newspaper, “maybe even a bouquet of flowers on the way home,” said architect Rob Pfaffmann, president of Preservation Pittsburgh, the nonprofit advocacy group launched in 1991 after the demolition of the Syria Mosque.
Bringing flowers back to the vacant building would be a sort of homecoming, as Lubin & Smalley operated a florist’s shop there for about 70 years after Regal Shoe moved out.
A transit cafe is just one idea; the important thing is to get a retail establishment up and running again at that gateway location. Located at one of the entrances to the Fifth and Forbes district, the building has an importance beyond it size, just 15 feet deep and 80 feet wide.
Restoring and renovating the building would show that preservation is a viable and desirable component of the revitalization as it moves forward, Pfaffmann said. Office space on the second floor could be used to house community meetings during the Fifth/Forbes planning process.
Pfaffmann thinks he knows how to keep the costs down, to about $500,000 for the building’s shell. Preservation Pittsburgh has asked Belmont Technical College in St. Clairsville, Ohio, to consider making it a class project next year.
Each year, Belmont students in the Building Preservation Technology Program put their newly acquired skills into play on a summer field project. Students have worked at Fallingwater, Grey Towers (the Richard Morris Hunt-designed, faux-French medieval castle in Milford, Pike County) and the Octagon House in Washington, D.C. Pfaffmann thinks Belmont students could, for example, rebuild the mullioned windows of the Regal Shoe building.
Closer to home, Carnegie Mellon University students could participate in transforming the building into a green, sustainable design, which should be a component of the revival.
Preservation Pittsburgh also hopes to team with Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation in making the project a case study at the National Trust for Historic Preservation conference, which comes to Pittsburgh in October 2006.
Partnerships will be a key to making this project work, as will a positive reception from the city and the Fifth/Forbes task force, not to mention interest from a shopkeeper. Task force chairman Herb Burger declined comment yesterday, saying it was the city’s decision. URA director Jerome Dettore has said that he is willing to wait for the right developer.
Pfaffmann didn’t say so, but the subliminal message of the project is critical and clear: Stop waiting for a big man with big money and big plans. Start somewhere, and start small. Just start.
(Architecture critic Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590.)
Copyright ©1997-2005 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Downtown switching from business to residential
By Tony LaRussa
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, February 27, 2005Pittsburgh’s business leaders think they finally have hit on a way to revitalize Downtown: Rather than focusing solely on making it the place to work and shop, position it as a place to live.
“The era of having totally commercial districts is over in Pittsburgh and other cities,” said Herb Burger, who helped launch the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership more than a decade ago and is among those spearheading the latest effort to revitalize the Fifth and Forbes corridor.“All indications point to the need to have residential development Downtown to stabilize the area and create a community of people who not only work there, but live and shop there as well,” Burger said.
Patty Burk, program director of Pittsburgh’s Downtown Living Initiative, believes efforts to increase the amount of residential development Downtown are part of a national trend.
“We’re seeing a growing number of people in Pittsburgh who view urban living as something cool, something they want to be part of,” Burk said.
“I think it’s a combination of people growing bored with the suburbs — whether it’s spending an hour or more a day commuting or something else — and realizing the city offers some great buildings within walking distance of their jobs as well as lots of cultural activities.”
Business leaders believe increasing the size of Downtown’s population will lay the groundwork for improving the retail climate.
“More people living Downtown adds vibrancy to the city, which should lead to a healthier retail environment,” said Nancy Hart, interim executive director of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. She said a goal of doubling the Downtown population — currently fewer than 4,000 people — is a realistic one.
Developer Ralph Falbo, who has teamed with the Zambrano Corp. and Equa Landmark Communities on a proposed 84-unit luxury condominium complex on Fort Pitt Boulevard near Stanwix Street called First Side, is banking on greater interest in Downtown living.
“I walked past that site all my life and noticed the beautiful view of the river,” Falbo said. “And I’ve long felt that the lack of upscale condos available for people who want to live Downtown really was a missing link in the fabric of the city.”
Falbo, who is hoping to break ground on the 18-story building in the spring, estimates the project will cost about $28 million. Work is expected to take about 18 months.
Downtown residential projects that are under construction or being planned include:
An 18-story, 151-unit luxury apartment building at Seventh Street and Fort Duquesne Boulevard in the Cultural District. The project is being done by Lincoln Property Co.
Conversion of the upper six floors of the Fidelity Building on Fourth Avenue into 24 apartments by developer Dean McHolme, who also has plans to convert a seven-story office building at 111 Wood St. into apartments.
Conversion of the Union National Bank Building at Fourth and Wood streets into 60 condominiums.
Construction of 20 luxury apartment units at 930 Penn Ave., near the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
While developers are optimistic about the future of residential development Downtown, those who jumped in early have had their difficulties.“I certainly believe the city is ripe for the national trend of people looking for a different lifestyle, a more urban experience, than was sought 20 or 30 years ago,” said Eve Picker of No Wall Productions, one of the city’s “loft living” pioneers. “But Pittsburgh tends to lag behind the rest of the country a bit, so Downtown has been a bit of a tough sell.”
Over the past several years, Picker has developed 21 upscale residential properties on First Avenue and along Penn Avenue, Downtown. However, a downturn in the city’s real estate market has meant several units remain vacant.
Burger said his group is concentrating on developing the lower portion of Fifth Avenue, from the closed Lazarus department store building down to Liberty Avenue.
While he cautions that plans for the Fifth and Forbes corridor are in the very early stages of development, the initial vision is to preserve the best of the older buildings and add a number of new structures.
Previous Fifth and Forbes plans promoted by Mayor Tom Murphy were sharply criticized by officials of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation because they included demolition of many older structures.
Burger said his group is working with Philadelphia residential developer Carl Dranoff on the latest Fifth and Forbes plan, which initially calls for between 600 and 800 residential units on the second and third floors of various buildings, and retail space at ground level.
Another change that will likely occur is a shift in who is spearheading the development effort, Burger said.
While the city will certainly be a major player in any effort to develop Downtown — the Urban Redevelopment Authority owns a significant number of buildings in the Fifth and Forbes corridor — success ultimately will have to rely on private initiatives.
“I think there is a greater sense that the political atmosphere is not the place to get things done,” Burger said. “It’s going to take people in the private sector saying we have to do something Downtown. Of course, the developers will be looking to the city to assist them.”
Tony LaRussa can be reached at tlarussa@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7987.
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Newest Fifth-Forbes plan built on housing – Retail still present but scaled down
By Mark Belko,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, January 20, 2005The latest attempt to inject life into the downtrodden Fifth and Forbes shopping corridor Downtown will include lots of housing and some street-level retail, but not nearly as much as in previous proposals, Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy said yesterday.
During a Rotary Club of Pittsburgh speech at the Omni William Penn Hotel, Murphy said he expects the newest plan aimed at reinvigorating the faltering retail district to be formalized within the next few weeks.
It is one of two major Downtown development pieces that could get renewed focus in 2005, Murphy’s last year in office.
Murphy also said he expects, by the end of the month, an agreement in principle with Cleveland developer Forest City Enterprises on the construction of a $104 million, 500-room hotel adjacent to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
Murphy said the latest make-over of properties along Fifth and Forbes avenues will be quite different than the retail-laden plan he unveiled nearly eight years ago, one that collapsed amid objections from Downtown property owners and the loss of Nordstrom, the proposed department store anchor.
The mayor said the newest version will be heavy on residential — up to several thousand new units — with ground-level retail serving as a complement.
One reason for the de-emphasis of retail, Murphy said, is that many of the major retailers or restaurants that had been considering Downtown have since chosen other locations, such as the SouthSide Works or The Waterfront in Homestead. One he mentioned was The Cheesecake Factory, which ended up at the SouthSide Works complex.
“I think we’re feeling more optimistic than we’ve felt in awhile,” Murphy said of the Fifth and Forbes project. “I think we had a window to do retail and I think that’s gone now, I mean, [as] a significant dominant driver of the deal. There’s still going to be retail — I expect mostly all the first floors to be retail — but the focus will be more on housing.”
While Murphy’s original proposal involved extensive demolition of existing buildings, many of which Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation officials considered historic and worth saving, the mayor said there would be an effort to preserve some buildings under the new plan.
Herb Burger, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership founder who is heading the ad hoc committee putting together the latest Fifth and Forbes initiative, said the intent is to preserve as many historic buildings as possible.
“Nobody’s interested in destroying beautiful buildings where they exist,” he said.
The committee’s work is being driven primarily by private interests, which banded together after Murphy’s first plan and a subsequent initiative collapsed.
Burger said most of the residential component would be concentrated in lower Fifth Avenue, from the vacant Lazarus-Macy’s department store to Liberty Avenue, and would involve a number of city Urban Redevelopment Authority properties acquired for development purposes. One of the buildings that is expected to house residential units is the old G.C. Murphy’s store near Market Square.
Burger’s committee is working “hand and glove” with Philadelphia residential developer Carl Dranoff on the latest plan.
Burger said the earliest phases of the project would feature 600 to 800 residential units, with expansion from there. The retail would be “complementary,” geared toward meeting the needs of Downtown residents, such as groceries and dry cleaning.
The Murphy administration wants to give Dranoff a chance to develop a comprehensive plan for the corridor before considering other approaches, including the possibility of selling off URA-owned properties.
Both Murphy and Burger believe that there’s a better chance of doing quality development if a developer has a large bank of properties to work with.
Federated Department Stores, the owner of the closed Lazarus-Macy’s, also has been open to a series of possible investors. But Burger said that to date he did not know of any sale or resolution of that property.
As for the convention center hotel, Murphy and Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato have set an end-of-January deadline for finalizing an agreement with Forest City on the hotel, which has been stuck in neutral for nearly two years.
Murphy said he is optimistic about getting an agreement, noting that Forest City and the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority “are down to very few issues,” most of them involving design or minute contractual details.
“The broad parameters of the deal we all agree on,” he said.
If no agreement is reached, the city and county could end up rebidding the project, but Murphy said that is currently not under consideration.
“There would have to be substantial and irreconcilable differences for us to proceed to [rebid it] because we’ve come so far on the deal at this point. It’s been a lot of years of discussion,” he said.
The hotel project was stalled for a long time because of funding shortfalls. But that changed when the state Legislature earmarked $44 million for it from a $2 billion tourism and economic development fund to be financed through slot machine gambling revenues.
(Mark Belko can be reached at mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.)
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Heinz factory conversion creates lofty living on North Side
By Alison Conte
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, October 9, 2004The transformation of the old H.J. Heinz factory on the North Side into luxury apartments could be called the new Industrial Revolution.
Heinz Lofts includes the Bean, Meat, Cereal and Reservoir buildings, which were named for the commodities that were produced or stored inside them. More than 150 of the planned 267 apartments will be available this month.Boasting great views of the Allegheny River, the Strip District and Downtown, the complex — which formerly housed manufacturing rooms, shipping docks and test kitchens — also will have a cafe, convenience store, community room and fitness center. The varied amenities will make Heinz Lofts “a town within a town,” says Debbie Roberts, property manager for Amore Management Co. of Monroeville, which handles leasing.
“This is precedent-setting in terms of the magnitude of the project,” says Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. “It is one of the most historically significant industrial complexes in Pittsburgh.”
Renovating challenges
This kind of industrial renovation and historic reuse is the specialty of the Ferchill Group of Cleveland, which is undertaking the $70 million project. Chief executive officer John Ferchill developed the Bridgeside Point Building at the Pittsburgh Technology Center and also is remodeling the Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee, Wis., into a residential and entertainment complex.
“We do a lot of renovations of old warehouses,” says Michael Wellman, project manager. His firm, Sandvick Architects of Cleveland, is familiar with the building codes that can be applied to older buildings and the challenges in historic preservation.
“The factory doesn’t naturally lend itself to a layout for housing,” says Jonathan Sandvick, principal of the firm. “We need to accommodate long, deep spaces and high ceilings.”
The challenge led to unusual floor plans. Because of the width of the building, each apartment has a long hallway leading in from the central corridor. In some units, the bedrooms, laundry and baths are off these hallways. Others feature a galley kitchen along the hall. Think of an ocean liner without interior cabins, where every stateroom has a porthole.
At the end of the halls, the living areas are saturated with natural light from the large square or semi-round arch windows that fill the exterior walls.
“We use borrowed light from these spaces, and interior windows to bring light to the bedrooms,” Wellman says.
This design leaves plenty of room for large living/dining areas with high ceilings, some of which include a fireplace, den or roof deck. For easy entertaining, many models have a kitchen and breakfast bar as part of the living rooms.
The architects faced a hefty challenge of working with the factory’s original equipment and structural elements such as pipes and columns, exposed brick, ductwork and steel beams.
“We celebrated these features, used them as sculpture in the spaces throughout,” Sandvick says. The 15-foot-high ceilings offered height to spare, so multiple levels with steps up or down to bedrooms have been incorporated.
Keeping the past intact
Because the Heinz factory is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the developer is eligible for a 20 percent tax credit if it follows certain conditions regarding reconstruction, Wellman says. This includes preserving the original exterior and one-third of the window frames.
Along with extensive cleaning of the masonry work, Roberts says, 2,000 new windows had to match the look and feel of the existing ones.
Two of the towers that the factory used will be brought back to serve as a gateway to the site. “We are also saving or reconstructing six of the bridges that connect all the buildings on the third, fourth or fifth floor,” Wellman says.
In the fifth-floor penthouse apartment of the Cereal Building, builders are using a window for a door. To get to their private roof deck, residents will mount a short staircase and duck through 4-foot-tall windows that have been converted to 4-foot-tall doors. The quirky arrangement is part of the charm.
Other remnants of the buildings’ past will be found in reconditioned stairwells, where the wood railings, terrazzo tile and ironwork are being cleaned and painted. To preserve the Heinz legacy, Sandvick says, some of the common areas will be decorated with Heinz 57 memorabilia and artifacts found during the construction.
Bridges that connect the buildings will allow residents to walk from one of the 500 garage parking spaces in Shipping, pick up mail and dry cleaning in Cereal, and stroll to their home in Reservoir, unencumbered by weather. Indoor parking is just one of the features drawing potential tenants to the site.
“People at all stages of life like the location, the amenities and the variety of floor plans,” Roberts says. “They can get public transportation to the city or walk over the bridge to the Strip.”
The Cereal building will be the “town square” for Heinz Lofts, where residents can gather in a community room with a kitchen, TV and fireplace. There also will be an indoor/outdoor cafe, mailboxes, convenience store, dry cleaning pickup and coin-operated laundry.
A business services center offers a conference room, fax, wireless Internet and conference call capabilities. Exercise equipment, a sauna, individual lap pool and hot tub are features of the fitness center.
For the ultimate Heinz Lofts living experience, one of the newly reconstructed towers will be part of a two-bedroom apartment. Another apartment will be incorporated into the rebuilt bridge and suspended three stories off the ground.
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which has been involved in the factory restoration, further protected the buildings by accepting a facade and development rights easement from the Ferchill Group. Nothing can be built over or above them — the exterior must continue to look like the historical buildings of the factory. Landmarks has permanent control over any changes to the exterior, foundation President Ziegler says.
Because the easement restrictions diminished the value of the property, Ziegler says, John Ferchill was able to take a charitable contribution, obtaining substantial dollars in federal tax deductions that helped his funding needs.
“The factory will look the same — the fine arched windows and red brick,” Ziegler says. “But it is better because people will be living in it. It brings housing close to town, to the river and the North Side, helping development in all these areas.”