Category Archive: Downtown Development
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Union Trust sale nears completion
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, January 26, 2008An investment group led by executives of the Mika Realty Group in Los Angeles is expected to complete the purchase of the historic Union Trust Building next week.
“Things have gone smoothly, and there have been no snags,” said Jeffrey Ackerman, commercial real estate broker with CB Richard Ellis/Pittsburgh, who has been marketing the 11-story, 800,000-square-foot structure on Grant Street since last year.The Tribune-Review reported in November that the building was under purchase agreement to the group that includes Michael Kamen, founder of privately held Mika, and a business associate, Gerson Fox, also of Los Angeles.
A purchase price has not been disclosed, but the building is assessed at $30.75 million, according to Allegheny County records.
Ackerman is working on behalf of the building’s owner, Teal Rock 501 Grant Street LP, a partnership owned by Philadelphia-based Cigna Corp.
“We look at the Union Trust Building as a classic building that can’t be duplicated,” Rick Barreca, CEO of Mika Realty, told the Tribune-Review in November. Barreca also one of the investors in the deal.A list of developers carried by a California business publication showed Mika as the 13th-largest developer in the Los Angeles area, with some 5.9 million square feet in commercial real estate developed.
“The buyers have hired an architectural firm to help design improvements for the building,” Ackerman said. The group has said it wants to upgrade the building without disturbing its historic character.
The building, which has been known as Two Mellon Bank Center, is widely regarded as one of the city’s most architecturally significant landmark buildings. It was designed in Flemish Gothic style by noted Pittsburgh architect F.J. Osterling and built in 1916 for industrialist Henry Clay Frick.
It has been nearly empty since Mellon Financial Corp. — now Bank of New York Mellon Corp. — moved its personnel out of the structure in May 2006.
A small number of mostly retail tenants remain on the first level, the largest being Lorrimer’s clothing store.
CB Richard Ellis will handle management of the building once the sale completed, Ackerman said.
Two of its brokers, Hugh “Herky” Pollock and Jeremy Kronman, already have been working on behalf of the buyers to pitch space there to potential tenants for first floor retail and the upper floor office space, Ackerman said.
“A number of large office users have looked at the building, and they also have some very exciting prospects for the retail,” said Ackerman, without disclosing names of companies involved.
“The office market really is very active right now,” said Kronman. He’s shown the building to numerous prospective tenants, in fact, “enough to fill up four times the available space,” he said.
“We have people looking for 50,000- to 200,000-square-foot blocks, and we haven’t really started our leasing campaign,” he said.
The national credit crunch that has had a major impact on the U.S. residential market hasn’t caused any problems with the Union Trust building deal, Ackerman said.
“The buyer has secured lender financing,” he said.
Securing financing was said to be a problem with a previous potential buyer, a New York investment group that included Houlihan-Parnes/iCap Realty Advisors of White Plains and J.J. Operating Corp. of New York City.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
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Allegheny County purchase of liens opens doors to development
By Justin Vellucci
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, January 24, 2008Doug Van Haitsma looks at a three-story apartment building in Swissvale and sees the heart of a revitalized neighborhood.
Now that Allegheny County has bought back the lien — a legal claim for unpaid taxes — on the Monongahela Avenue property, Van Haitsma said his plan to convert it and 50 nearby parcels into a Mon Valley gateway is a step closer to reality.
“It’s a pocket within Swissvale that has really fallen on hard times,” said Van Haitsma, real estate director for the Mon Valley Initiative, a development group. “Having those liens in friendly hands … is a huge advantage.”
The county redevelopment authority agreed Wednesday to spend $1.625 million to buy back liens on 19,013 properties it sold a decade ago to GLS Capital Inc. The purchase includes vacant homes, commercial buildings and undeveloped lots in 129 municipalities — every town in the county except Pennsbury Village.
Officials hope the purchase spurs a development boom.
“We felt this was a pretty good deal,” said Dennis Davin, director of the county’s economic development office. “This gives us control of what happens at these properties.”The purchase also ends a 2007 lawsuit in which GLS accused the county of selling it “defective liens,” such as ones for sites the government planned to acquire through eminent domain, county solicitor Mike Wojcik said. The Virginia-based company sought more than $1.85 million in damages, court records show.
“It became cumbersome having to deal with them,” Wojcik said. “We can get GLS out of the picture now.”
GLS could not be reached for comment.
Attorney E.J. Strassburger, who helped file the lawsuit, forwarded questions to an attorney who didn’t return calls. Strassburger’s firm also represents the Tribune-Review.
The purchase represents just part of the 77,000 delinquent accounts GLS bought for nearly $50 million in the mid-1990s.
About one in every four of the purchased properties — roughly 4,500 — are in Pittsburgh. The city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority is interested in acquiring some liens in hopes of drawing developers to those properties, many of which are vacant, Davin said.
The head of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which is restoring four Wilkinsburg homes once hit with tax liens, lauded the move.
“It sounds good to us because it (puts) the property back into the control of the county,” said foundation president Arthur Ziegler. “It would make renewal of them much easier.”
Patrick Shattuck, a ninth-generation Vermont native who moved to Wilkinsburg a year ago, agreed. He wants to turn vacant lots whose liens were bought by the county into parking and open space near his 108-year-old Edwardian home.
“The goal is to get the properties back into the hands of folks that are going to use them … and make these communities vibrant again,” Shattuck said.
The move to buy previously sold liens is not new. In 2006, Pittsburgh officials teamed with the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority and Pittsburgh Public Schools to buy liens on more than 11,000 properties for $6.5 million. The city sold about 14,000 liens from 1996 to 1999 for $64 million.
Justin Vellucci can be reached at jvellucci@tribweb.com or 412-320-7847
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Smaller housing projects dot the city
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 23, 2007While large new housing developments draw much of the attention Downtown — among them Piatt Place, the Carlyle, Three PNC Plaza, 151 First Side and the Encore on 7th Street — there’s also a fair number of smaller projects adding to the mix.
An example is a plan by the Urban Evergreen Group to develop 10 to 12 units in two buildings: 333 Boulevard of Allies and 330 Third Ave.
“Pittsburgh is an ideal place for developments and investments,” said Jose Caro of Urban Evergreen, who moved here from New York about two months ago.
This is his first development in Pittsburgh, and Caro wants to do others.
Urban Evergreen paid $495,000 for the two buildings, with plans to develop retail on the first level, offices on the second and residential units on the floors above. Caro says it hasn’t been decided if the units will be offered for sale as condominiums or rented as apartments.
Together, the buildings have about 19,200 square feet. The structures were sold to Urban Evergreen by Human Services of Western Pennsylvania, with Tom Sullivan, a broker with Pennsylvania Commercial Real Estate who handled the deal.
Other projects adding to the residential mix Downtown include Philadelphia developer Solara Ventures’ condominium development at 941 Penn Ave. that is providing 18 units.
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation is moving forward with its plans to convert three vacant buildings on the edge of Market Square into Market at Fifth, a $2.5 million to $3 million complex that will feature seven upper-floor apartments, a ground-level restaurant and a rooftop garden.
Another smaller development is 5 Lofts, a project that, as the name says, provides five residential units. The complex is being developed in a six-story building at 806 Penn Ave. by Ninth and Liberty Partners LLC, a group that includes investors Sean Luther, Tom Jackson and Patty Burk.
The first floor will be for commercial use, while the floors above each contain one unit with about 1,850 square feet.
Burk is vice president of housing and economic development for the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, an advocacy group.
One of partnership’s goals is to promote conversion of vacant upper floors of older commercial buildings into new housing.
Judging from recent evidence, the idea seems to be catching on.
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Banks reborn as nightclubs, restaurants and a spa
By The Tribune-Review
Thursday, December 13, 2007Back in the day, banks were built with a grandeur and strength in both material and design.
These magnificent shrines to commerce were built with tall granite columns, marble counters and brass cashier cages. The structures spoke of trust, reliability and permanence.
Fast-forward to the next century, and enter the world of credit cards, ATM machines and online banking.
The permanence of those banks as imposing buildings remains, but many have been renovated into new establishments, such as clubs, coffeehouses, condos, restaurants — and even a spa.
Here are a handful found throughout the area — and one with plans for the future.
CARSON CITY SALOON, SOUTH SIDE
You want a nightclub, you want a big, sturdy, solid building. Something that the bass from a Timbaland or Kanye West track isn’t going to shake apart. So why not a bank?
Carson City Saloon inhabits a space built for the German National Depository in 1896. It also was a Mellon Bank, then a Citizens Bank. Typical for its time, the massively imposing, thick-walled neoclassical building conveys fortress-like safety and stability. It’s an attractive structure, if not particularly festive or fun.
But inside, it has been totally transformed into a spacious, high-ceilinged cavern of sports, television and beer. One thing that remains from its bank beginnings is the giant, steel walk-in vault in the far back wall. Once, it probably served to reassure customers and intimidate potential robbers. Now, it’s just another decoration on the wall between the kitchen and the digital jukebox.
Carson City Saloon, 1401 E. Carson St., South Side. Hours: 11:45 a.m.-1:45 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays, noon-midnight Sundays. Details: 412-481-3203.
PERK COFFEE GALLERY, WEST END
The vault of a West End bank is now a treasure house of coffee, wraps, soups, sandwiches and an ever-changing selection of home-cooked entrees. New to the scene as of Nov. 17, Perk Coffee Gallery began serving customers in the safe deposit vault where generations of banking clients once stored their valuables.
Toni Herd, a Munhall resident and the owner of Perk Coffee Gallery, was looking for a space to open a coffee shop and art gallery that would become part of the West End’s revitalization. An artist friend told her about this available space.
Constructed in 1927 for the West End Savings and Trust Co., the building had been subdivided into an indoor mini-mall for shops and a National City Bank branch office.
Herd fell in love with the tiny space, especially when she learned she could fill the adjoining vault with tables and chairs for her customers.
She offers homemade dishes such as macaroni and cheese or green beans and smoked turkey alongside the lighter options that include vegan wraps, red beans and greens salads. The $6.25 Saturday lunch special menu features smoked and barbecued ribs or chicken, collard greens or baked beans, a corn muffin and a choice of cole slaw or potato salad.
Right now, most of Herd’s customers are people who work in the neighborhood. But there’s a number of art galleries nearby, and the walls of Perk Coffee Gallery are lined with original artworks created by Herd and other local artists.
“I’m hoping the area will become a place (for artists and their customers) to hang out comfortably,” she says.
Perk Coffee Gallery, 22 Wabash St., West End. Hours: 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Fridays, 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Details: 412-773-1057.
ROCKWELL’S RED LION RESTAURANT, ELIZABETH
The building that houses Rockwell’s Red Lion Restaurant in Elizabeth originally was built for the First National Bank of Elizabeth in 1906. The bank closed its doors permanently seven years later. The building housed a drugstore and a second-hand store and stood vacant until the Rockwell family purchased and renovated it, opening the restaurant May 14, 1980.
Framed old photos on the restaurant walls are a reminder of life in Elizabeth as far back as the late 1800s.
The restaurant is run by Orrie Rockwell Jr. and his children, Lynn McHolme, who runs the business office, and Orrie Rockwell III, who is the chef. The menu changes periodically to feature seasonal dishes. Chef Orrie’s specialties include roasted duck with blackberry and black cherry demi-glaze ($21.95), salmon with blueberry glaze ($16.95) and chicken with apricot glaze ($14.95).
The restaurant will hold a Christmas wine tasting and dinner Dec. 22. Cost of the four-course meal is $40.
Rockwell’s Red Lion Restaurant, 201 Second St., Elizabeth. Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fridays, 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturdays, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Sundays. Details: 412-384-3909.
THE VAULT COFFEE & TEA BAR, BRIGHTON HEIGHTS
There are banks, and then there are savings and loans. The former typically is a marble-floored financial institution whose Doric columns and gilded ceilings radiate fiduciary gravitas. The latter is the bank’s folksy cousin, with functional carpeting and color schemes that recall the Brady Bunch rec room.
It makes sense that The Vault Coffee & Tea Bar, a mainstay of the Brighton Heights business district, should take up residence in a former savings and loan. Its homely intimacy serves its quirky sensibility well.
You won’t find a bank vault in The Vault — at least not on the main floor. But you will enjoy spotting vestiges of its former life while you wait for barista Matt Haberman or owner Bradley Richards to make your espresso.
The small lectern where folks used to fill out deposit slips now holds napkins. Beneath a sign that proclaims “Today’s Interest Rates” is a menu that touts stuffed grape leaves, Chicken Feta Mojo, bagels or toast. Another sign invites customers to “angry up” their usual cup of Joe with a shot of espresso.
The original office couches, where anxious customers waited for loan approval, now serve as posterior magnets in the small upstairs balcony. It’s strewn with laptops and back issues of Spin. If the coffee doesn’t wake you up, the loud blue walls will.
Customers Michele Knickerbocker and Michelle Ligon, both nursing students and moms, park themselves by the counter, where bank tellers reportedly served customers from behind bulletproof glass.
“I have two kids, and you can bring them here,” Knickerbocker says. “People don’t act annoyed that they’re around.”
The Vault Coffee & Tea Bar, 3619 California Ave., Brighton Heights. Hours: 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays. Details: 412-734-1935.
THE SEWICKLEY SPA, LIGONIER
Money-related puns abound with satisfied patrons at The Sewickley Spa, who often tell the owner that they got a wealth of a wonderful treatment with rich pleasures. Given that their pampering took place in a former bank vault, there’s no better way to describe it, says Dorothy Andreas Tuel, owner of the Ligonier spa that is housed in a former Mellon Bank building.
“People really get a kick out of it,” she says. “It’s a conversation piece as well as a relaxing treatment.”
Andreas Tuel — who also owns The Sewickley Spa at Sewickley, and The Sewickley Spa at Wisp Resort in Maryland — opened the Ligonier location in 2001. She says she was thrilled to discover that the Mellon Bank building was available, after looking around Ligonier for a new spot.
With plenty of open spaces, the bank building was easy to convert into a spa, she says. The building, with its granite columns, still retains some of its turn-of-the-century bank look, and some banking remnants — like a $20 bill from the 1940s — were found during the renovation. Inside the spa, visitors can get pampered with more than three dozen treatments, mostly skin and body therapy.
The Sewickley Spa, 112 N. Market St., Ligonier. Hours: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesdays, 8:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. Details: 724-238-3878.
PITTSBURGH ENGINEERS BUILDING, DOWNTOWN
The former bank that now houses the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania was built in the heart of Pittsburgh’s financial district, Downtown, at the turn of the last century by famed architect Daniel H. Burnham. He also designed the Flatiron Building in New York City and Pittsburgh’s Union Station, now the Pennsylvanian, among many other buildings.
Members and guests of the Engineers’ Society have the privilege of eating inside the bank vault during daily lunches. But you’ll have to make friends with an engineer; unfortunately, the club dining room is not open to the public.
DISCOVERY & INTERACTIVE SCIENCE CENTER, GREENSBURG
A former Mellon Bank building in downtown Greensburg could become an interactive, hands-on science center if Douglas Lingsch and his wife, Mari-Pat, can make it happen.
The Bedford couple hope to open the Discovery & Interactive Science Center — run as a nonprofit, similar to the Carnegie Science Center — in the fall of 2008 or 2009.
The granite-block structure was built in 1928 for the Barclay-Westmoreland Trust Co. and has been vacant since Citizens Bank closed its branch in March 2005. In September, the Lingsches bought the vacant building for $258,000. Douglas Lingsch says it remains in good condition, and he anticipates spending about $1 million to convert it.
The lobby of the former bank would be completely renovated, and a mezzanine floor would be added to create more exhibit space. The bank’s two vaults — whose 800- to 1,000-pound doors have glass panels exposing the gears — would be part of the attraction.
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Pittsburgh architect draws admirers, awards
By David M. Brown
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, November 25, 2007Pittsburgh architect Art Lubetz admires the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, the 20th-century visionary who designed Fallingwater in Fayette County and other masterpieces inspiring to generations of architects.
Lubetz differs with the master, though, on one professional observation.
“Frank Lloyd Wright used to say he didn’t draw a line until he had the whole building in his mind,” says Lubetz, 67, of Oakland. “That might be true. He might have been a super-duper genius. But for schleps like me and most other architects, it’s hard work to get there.”
The self-effacing comment hardly meshes with how others see him.
Lubetz is a visionary thinker in his own right, a gifted architect whose designs have added flare, vigor and rare dimensions to many buildings and abodes throughout his native Western Pennsylvania and other locales across the nation, say his peers, associates and a former student.
He speaks out to preserve worthy old structures, loves cats, collects vivid Czechoslovakian vases, reads vociferously, draws insight from 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza and admits that years ago, he once pushed his Alfa Romeo to 118 mph late at night on the Parkway West.
Lubetz recently received an American Institute of Architects Honor Award at the Design Pittsburgh Awards. He was recognized for “extremely well done” work in the expansion and renovation of the Squirrel Hill branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. He is founder and president of Lubetz Architects, an Oakland-based firm celebrating its 40th anniversary this fall.
“It’s notable that Art brings that kind of passionate approach to all the work he does, whether it’s residential, commercial or a public building, like a library,” said Anne-Marie Lubenau, an architect and executive director of the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh, a nonprofit that supports quality architecture.
“He is continually searching to bring fresh ideas to architecture, thinking out of the box, and creating places for people that are inspiring,” she said.
The library project, completed in April 2005, transformed what had been a nondescript structure at the corner of Forbes and Murray avenues into an architectural showcase with copper trimmings and abundant aqua glass. The glass-cube lobby juts out an angle toward Forbes Avenue. The $4.7 million renovation added 7,000 square feet, or 38 percent, new space for library users.
“Our buildings generally are noticeable,” says Lubetz, petting a pair of calico cats — Za and Ha — that paw at the architect for a share of his attention. The cats, sisters, are named after architect Zaha Hadid.
“As a result, people imagine that we are arrogant or something,” he says, “but it’s not for people to notice us. It’s for people to notice the architecture and notice what’s been done, so that maybe their awareness will be raised when they think about architecture.”
“I’m very intrigued by materials that are acted on by nature and change over time. We like copper because it changes. Glass changes throughout the day depending on how the sun hits it.”
The library’s glass walls and skylights were designed to let in sufficient sunlight to create the feeling of reading on a porch.
“Lots of light. That’s one characteristic of almost all our work. Light activates the life within architecture,” Lubetz said.
The panel of architects that bestowed the award said the library’s design “makes people re-think any preconceptions” about urban public libraries. “We bet this place just hops because it really strikes us as a place the community can own,” the panel said.
Among previous awards, Lubetz received honors for his Lincoln Towers housing complex near New York City and his design of the Hartford, Conn., City Hall.
He has taught architectural studio courses at Carnegie Mellon University since 1988. His wife, Karen Myres, a former CMU educator, is president of the Executive Women’s Council.
Former student Dan Cohen, 23, of Squirrel Hill, a recent CMU graduate, described Lubetz as inspirational.
“He taught us architecture is more than just four walls and a roof. It’s more than a pretty facade,” Cohen said. “It’s about putting into it this extra level of thought, which hopefully can translate over to something that the user can experience, and that’s what makes great architecture.”
As president of Preservation Pittsburgh in 2000, Lubetz was one of the leaders of a successful effort to block an attempt to demolish six square blocks of buildings in Downtown — the core of then-Mayor Tom Murphy’s development plan in the Fifth and Forbes corridor.
“He is a Pittsburgh architect who has long been in the forefront of modern design, but has enormous respect for the architecture of our past, and he is willing to stand up and defend it,” said Arthur Ziegler, president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, another organization that opposed the plan to raze 68 buildings.
Lubetz has battled through some tough challenges — physical and professional — over the course of his life.
As a 19-year-old architecture student at then-Carnegie Institute of Technology, Lubetz was diagnosed with cornea disease that was leading to blindness. The prognosis threatened his career, but cornea transplants saved his vision. In his early 40s, he suffered a bout of multiple sclerosis that debilitated his right leg. A rigorous therapy regiment restored his use of it.
In July 1996, tragedy struck when his partner, architect Jill Watson, was killed in the crash of TWA Flight 800 near Long Island, N.Y. “She was a partner in the firm and in life and even in drawing. We would fight each other to put the next line on the paper,” Lubetz said at the time.
At a 40th anniversary celebration for his business, a guest asked Lubetz: “Wow. How did you do it?”
“Sometimes I can’t figure it out,” says Lubetz. “Our work is and has always been unusual.
“I think three characteristics I have gotten me through. I’m doggedly determined because I love what I do. I’m tenacious. And I have a major ability to deal with disappointment. I work hard for what I want and I work even harder to be happy with what I end up getting.”
David M. Brown can be reached at dbrown@tribweb.com or 412-380-5614.
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Union Trust Building excites latest suitor
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, November 2, 2007An investment group led by executives of the Mika Realty Group in Los Angeles said Thursday it hopes to complete the purchase of the historic Union Trust Building, Downtown, by the end of the month.
The group, which includes Michael Kamen, founder of the privately held company, and a business associate, Gerson Fox, also of Los Angeles, said it has plans to restore the grandeur of the block-long structure at 501 Grant St. that experts say is one of Pittsburgh’s most architecturally significant buildings.
The purchase price has not been disclosed, but the building is assessed at $30.75 million, according to Allegheny County records.
“We look at the Union Trust Building as a classic building that can’t be duplicated,” said Rick Barreca, CEO of Mika Realty, also one of the investors.
Plans are to continue using the 11-story, 800,000-square-foot structure as an office building and attract a mix of upscale retail tenants to the first level, he said.
“We think that is the highest and best use for it,” Barreca said. “We’re looking forward to bringing in some exciting retail to the first level, and leasing the office space to some very good tenants.”
The Union Trust Building, which has been known as Two Mellon Bank Center, has been nearly empty since Mellon Financial Corp. — now Bank of New York Mellon Corp. — moved its personnel out of the structure in May 2006. A small number of mostly retail tenants remain on the first level, the largest being Lorrimer’s clothing store.
“Several major office tenants and retail tenants already have expressed interest in the building,” said Jeffrey Ackerman, commercial real estate broker with CB Richard Ellis/Pittsburgh, the firm commissioned to sell the building by the owner, Teal Rock 501 Grant Street LP, a partnership owned by Philadelphia-based Cigna Corp.
CB Richard Ellis will handle leasing and management of the building once the sale is completed, Ackerman said.
The investment group is working with two architectural firms on ideas for the building that would not disturb its historic character, Barreca said.
Mika’s Internet site said it is the 13th-largest developer in the Los Angeles area, with some 5.9 million square feet in commercial real estate developed.
Barreca said Kamen has been involved in the commercial real estate business for more than 40 years and has specialized on “adaptive reuse” of older buildings, including conversion of office facilities to loft apartments.
One of Mika’s projects was the Star News Building, an 80,000-square-foot building in Pasadena, Calif., that was renovated as a $20 million residential building. The project included installation of a 24-hour fitness club and other amenities in a 30,000-square-foot basement that used to house newspaper printing presses.
A current project is Victory Lofts, where the company is developing 102 residential units in a Cleveland building in the vicinity of the Cleveland Clinic, Barreca said.
“We are really enthused that it appears a very promising buyer is very interested in the building,” said Arthur P. Ziegler, president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. He met Barreca recently when he was visiting the city.
“This is a developer who appears to have considerable experience with historic buildings and is particularly attracted to the Union Trust Building because of his positive feelings about the future of the Pittsburgh market and the extraordinary architectural quality of the building,” Ziegler said. “I think he is going to treat it very well.”
Barreca said the group is finalizing financing for the purchase with a bank, rather than go to the capital markets or Wall Street sources. Thus, he said, there should not be a problem with financing because of the mortgage crisis, which has played havoc with the national residential real estate market and impacted some commercial deals.
Securing financing was said to be a problem with the previous potential buyer, a New York investment group that included Houlihan-Parnes/iCap Realty Advisors of White Plains and J.J. Operating Corp. of New York City.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
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L.A. investors have eye on Union Trust building
by Ben Semmes
Pittsburgh Business Times
Friday, November 2, 2007A group of Los Angeles-based investors expect to close on the Union Trust Building by year end.
“We have an instinctive feeling that the property is a very good property,” said Rick Barreca, CEO of Mika Realty Group, of the nearly 600,000-square-foot, 11-story Downtown building.
Barreca said that Mika Realty’s founder Michael Kamen is leading the acquisition, along with his business associate Gershon Fox.
Barreca declined to reveal the price but said the group will maintain the property as an office building.
The recent turmoil in the credit markets, which already scared off at least one potential buyer in the New York-based partnership of Houlihan-Parnes and J.J. Operating Corp., should not be an issue, Barreca said.
“We tend to stay out of the capital markets and work with commercial banks that have very good real estate departments and are able to lend on their own books,” he said.
The company’s first acquisition in Pennsylvania, the Union Trust Building has been virtually vacant since Mellon Financial Corp. moved out of the building last year.
CB Richard Ellis/Pittsburgh had been marketing the building on behalf of owner Teal Rock 501 Grant Street LP, an entity controlled by Philadelphia-based Cigna Corp., since the end of last year.
bsemmes@bizjournals.com | (412) 208-3829
Courtesy of © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.
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Pittsburgh development CEO debuts
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, October 17, 2007On Monday, Howard B. Slaughter Jr. officially started his job as CEO of Landmarks Community Capital Inc., a new nonprofit corporation formed by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
Slaughter didn’t wait to begin his quest to raise the $10 million to $15 million he hopes to secure for the new corporation to invest in community development and revitalization projects in Western Pennsylvania and in the neighboring states of West Virginia and Ohio.
“We’ve already been talking to some companies that have social investment programs,” said Slaughter, whose appointment was announced last month. “We also are going to be talking to some local foundations to discuss our new company and the opportunities we see.”
Slaughter, 49, can draw on his considerable credentials in urban housing and home financing as he pitches funders on behalf of the new corporation.
In essence, he is back home at Pittsburgh History & Landmarks, where he headed neighborhood programs as director of preservation services from 1995 to 1999.
That was before he left to serve an eight-year stint as director of Fannie Mae’s Pittsburgh Community Business Center, which has been a major source of home financing in this region.
Fannie Mae, the nation’s largest home funding company, decided to close the center along with similar offices in more than 40 cities, citing realignment of goals and the need to cut costs. Pittsburgh’s center helped 24,000 families in the region become homeowners at projects that include Summerset at Frick Park, and Bedford Hope VI and the Oak Hill housing complex, both in the Hill District.
Slaughter previously served as vice president of Dollar Bank’s Community Development group.
“Howard brings the vision and the working knowledge for the new nonprofit corporation,” said Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and president of Landmarks Community Capital.
“We think he is just the person to expand the assistance we hope to render to Western Pennsylvania in revitalizing historic rural areas, towns and urban areas, particularly in Pittsburgh,” Ziegler said.
Efforts might include helping the Hill District community fulfill a long-standing need to bring a grocery store to the neighborhood, said Slaughter.
Hill District community leaders want a commitment for a new supermarket to be part of a “community benefits agreement” with the Pittsburgh Penguins in return for their support for the hockey team’s new $290 million arena. Slaughter said he’s with Penguins President David Morehouse to discuss how the corporation’s participation may help make that happen.
Improving neighborhood housing also is a target as is helping preserve some of the historic farms in the region that the South Side-based Landmarks Foundation has identified as worth saving in a recent survey.
“In the first year, we would like to provide funding for at least four of five different projects ranging from $25,000 to $1 million,” Slaughter said. “We have a wide range of funding options because the multiplicity of opportunities for investment are wide.”
The first investments could come by the first quarter of 2008, he said.
The idea of the new corporation is to raise funds through grants, loans and investments. Roles it can play include as developer, co-developer, or a lender to community development corporations and others that undertake such work.
Slaughter uses the accounting term “FIFO” in describing the corporation’s investment strategy. The idea is to be “first in” with its funds to help jump-start projects in early stages, and then be “first out” with those funds when more permanent financing is secured from others to carry development forward.
“We certainly want to focus on urban areas in the Pittsburgh and Allegheny County region,” said Slaughter.
Another target area is likely to be Wilkinsburg, where Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has worked with two $500,000 grants secured from the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Allegheny County Department of Economic Development to acquire and restore four century-old structures for new housing.
“We also would like to do some work on the North Side and where we have several county Main Street programs. We have pilot areas in Tarentum, Swissvale, Elizabeth Township and Stowe,” he said.
Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato is “very excited” about the new corporation and its potential, said spokesman Kevin Evanto.
Slaughter and Ziegler met with Onorato several weeks ago to outline their plans.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907