Category Archive: Downtown Development
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Mayor: City will attempt Plan C without eminent domain
By Dave Copeland
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, April 2, 2002Without completely ruling out its use, Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy said the city will attempt to implement the Plan C Task Force proposal for redeveloping Downtown Pittsburgh without using eminent domain.
“We have not authorized eminent domain. So when we approach a building owner now, we will be negotiating with them amicably in attempting to come to a fair price without the threat of eminent domain there,” Murphy said this morning. “We are ruling it our right now, but I can’t speak for the future.”The task force unveiled a strategy for redeveloping the Fifth-Forbes retail corridor last month. The group had urged Murphy back down from a November 2000 pledge to not use eminent domain, saying it would take too long to redevelop Pittsburgh’s tired retail core without using the controversial technique.
Murphy’s renewal of his pledge yesterday brought at least temporary relief to opponents of eminent domain.
“As long as we’re not using eminent domain, I can support the plan,” said Patty Maloney, one of three Plan C Task Force members who signed a minority opinion against using eminent domain. Maloney acknowledged that the mayor had allowed for some wiggle room to use eminent domain in the future, but said she was pleased overall with comments Murphy made during his 45-minute press conference Tuesday morning.
The task force was formed after Murphy’s own plan, Market Place at Fifth & Forbes, unraveled in late 2000. The mayor charged the group with forming a consensus on redeveloping Downtown. Among the chief criticisms of the mayor’s first plan were its failure to preserve historic buildings, the use of eminent domain, and what was seen as a limited housing component.
Murphy also outlined a five-point plan for moving forward with the task force’s recommendations. Among the components of that plan:
The city planning department will issue a request for proposals to interested developers.
Once a developer is selected, the city will hammer out a financing plan. Murphy said it was too soon to say whether or not that plan would resemble the one recommended by the task force, which called for a $360 million development with $51.5 million in public money, $39.5 million in corporate and philanthropic donations and $264 million in private investment.
Begin an $8 million infrastructure improvement in the Central Business District, with a focus on reconstructing Forbes Avenue, Smithfield Street and Market Street.
Direct the Urban Redevelopment Authority to expand a grant program for restoring building facades, as well as create new loan programs to allow existing tenants and building owners to improve the condition of their properties.
Begin a strict and aggressive program to enforce existing city building codes in the Fifth-Forbes area.
Dave Copeland can be reached at dcopeland@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7922.
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Murphy’s law
By J.H. Huebert
Monday, March 18, 2002Is it fair that one man should be forced to turn over his property to another man just because the other is his political superior? Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy and City Planner Susan Golomb seem to think so.
Mayor Murphy, as you may know, once again is entertaining the use of the government’s power of eminent domain to take longtime Downtown businesses and real estate from their rightful owners and give the land to private developers who want to build things like a luxury hotel and new retail complex. This means that if community members like the 101-year-old family-owned Harris Brothers Florists and others who have been established there for decades refuse to surrender their property voluntarily, the city will simply take it from them.The resurfacing of this threat has attracted the attention of the Institute for Justice, a Washington, D.C., public-interest law firm that represents victims of eminent domain abuse in court for free. The institute played a pivotal part in defending these same Pittsburghers two years ago, when Murphy threatened to take their businesses and hand their land over to Chicago developers. The IFJ has vowed to stand up for them again.
Golomb, whose Plan C Task Force recommended the use of eminent domain to the mayor, argues that the institute doesn’t have any business telling her and the mayor how to run their city. “I think the issue you should understand is that the Plan C Task Force is made up of Pittsburghers,” she says. “The Institute for Justice is not a group of Pittsburghers.”
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Eminent domain debated
By Dave Copeland and Luis Fabregas
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, March 10, 2002Opponents and proponents of using eminent domain rarely see eye-to-eye, but they do agree on one thing: The process is seldom easy and rarely pleases all sides.
On Thursday, the Plan C Task Force recommended that Mayor Tom Murphy abandon his pledge to not use eminent domain for Downtown redevelopment efforts. The majority recommendation in the group’s approach brought immediate cries of protest from some Downtown property owners and a Washington, D.C., watchdog group that labeled the recommendation as eminent domain abuse.But backers of the plan say eminent domain is needed to ensure the city will be able to assemble the multi-block parcel under consideration for redevelopment. Even Murphy conceded last week that eminent domain may be needed if property owners refused to sell their property at reasonable rates to the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority.
Eminent domain was one of the key criticisms of Murphy’s original plan, known as Market Place at Fifth & Forbes. That plan fell apart in November 2000, prompting Murphy to form the Plan C Task Force and pledge not to use eminent domain.
The concept of using eminent domain as a redevelopment tool started in Pittsburgh at the edge of Point State Park. In the late 1940s, the URA used eminent domain to take 23 acres to build Gateway Center, the four steel towers that sit at the entrance to the city. Part of what became known as Pittsburgh’s first Renaissance, Gateway Center was the nation’s first redevelopment project to use eminent domain to transfer property for a private, commercial use.
A decade later, the URA again used the threat of eminent domain to clear 1,300 lower Hill District Buildings to make way for Mellon Arena. Today, the project is still widely criticized for destroying what many consider to have been a vibrant neighborhood and one of the key spots on the national jazz scene.
More than 40 years later, eminent domain still raises tension among elected and business leaders.
State Rep. Bill Robinson has become a vocal critic of eminent domain. Robinson, a Democrat from Schenley Heights, said it was a ruling from the county Court of Common Pleas — in the case involving a church displaced by the URA — that broadened the scope of eminent domain locally into the area of retail developments.
Experts say eminent domain is used by government to create space for schools, playgrounds and infrastructure. In theory, it is the government’s right to acquire private property for public use.
“Eminent domain has been used more as a power tool that’s in the back room and you have it, but you end up never using it,” said Karen Alschuler, an urban planner in San Francisco. “You can always use it as a last resort, but it’s always better if you don’t have to go through the actual legal proceeding.”
In Pittsburgh, eminent domain most recently has been the tool of choice to rid the North Side of one of its most notable tenants — the X-rated Garden Theatre. Despite the site’s condemnation, the owner has refused to sell the building and the case remains tangled in a court battle.
Mayor Tom Murphy often talks of the Garden Theatre as the only time his administration has been forced to file an eminent domain suit against a property owner. The case remains unsettled, and has held up the Federal-North project aimed at redeveloping two rundown blocks on the North Side.
To date, the URA has paid more than $500,000 in legal fees in the four-year dispute. Currently, the case is awaiting a decision in the county Court of Common Pleas.
In 1999, the URA threatened to take North Side land and buildings owned by the Pittsburgh Wool Co. by eminent domain with plans of transferring the acquired property to the H.J. Heinz Co. The city never filed an eminent domain suit, but ended up paying $5 million for property that had an assessed value of $1.5 million.
The URA sold the land to Heinz for $1.5 million. Today, it is occupied by the food maker’s new, 70,000-square-foot warehouse.
“Eminent domain is appropriate for a true public works project — the building of a road, the building of a dam, the building of a school,” said Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which has staged campaigns against the use of eminent domain as a redevelopment tool. “Unfortunately, over the past 40 or 50 years, we’ve gotten away from that.”
The institute has vowed to defend Downtown property owners for free if the city tries to take their property with eminent domain.
Not everyone directly affected by eminent domain opposes it.
“Sometimes we all have to make a bigger sacrifice in order to be part of this community,” said Pat Joseph, executive director of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Joseph was forced to move her North Side office in the Martin Building along General Robinson and Federal streets to make room for PNC Park. “Eminent domain is not a negative thing, as long as everyone is represented.”
Plan C Task Force spokeswoman and city Planning Director Susan Golomb said eminent domain would be used only as a last resort. She branded the Institute for Justice as “out-of-towners.”
“I think the issue you should understand is that the Plan C Task Force is made up of Pittsburghers. This is a group of people who had very different opinions that came together and formed a consensus,” Golomb said. “We think this is a very exciting plan and feel it’s unfortunate that an out-of-town group would come in to criticize it.”
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Downtown welcomes Plan C’s apartments
By Sam Spatter
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, March 9, 2002The proposal to add 480 new apartments Downtown as part of Plan C is welcome news to members of the Downtown Neighborhood Association and the estimated 5,000 people who call that section of the city home.
Through the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, a number of initiatives have been put in place to encourage developers to convert some of the older, vacant or underused buildings into apartments.The most recent opening was the 117-unit Penn Garrison Apartments in the 900 block of Penn Avenue, where two former office buildings have been converted by the Regional Industrial Development Corp. into residences.
Approximately 30 of those units have been leased, including all of the larger loft apartments.
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Downtown overhaul poses many challenges
By Dave Copeland
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, March 9, 2002Even though one national authority on urban redevelopment hasn’t seen the latest proposal to remake Downtown, she knows it’s better than the last one.
“It has to be a 100 percent improvement, because the mayor’s original plan was such a disaster,” said Roberta Brandes Gratz, a New York author who has written two books on revitalizing downtowns.Still, it’s too early to tell what chance the latest blueprint for redeveloping Downtown has to succeed — politically and economically.
The Plan C Task Force presented its long-awaited report to Mayor Tom Murphy on Thursday. Among the promises included in the 450-page document are up to $7.7 million in new property tax revenues, 3,057 construction jobs, 880 new full-time jobs and a Downtown brimming with residents and visitors.
But it also comes with the promise of new challenges. The Plan C Task Force may have completed its work, but now city and private development officials will begin wrestling with a number of questions left unanswered by the report.
Among the issues to be settled:Financing. While the plan notes that the $365 million redevelopment strategy will need $51.5 million in public subsidies, there is no mention of how that money will be raised and what percentage would come from local, county, state and federal funds. The rest of the money comes from corporate and philanthropic donations and private investment.
Regulatory approval. If Murphy accepts the task force’s recommendation, the plan would need to be approved by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the Historic Review Commission and City Council. Two years ago, Murphy’s first plan for redeveloping the Fifth-Forbes corridor left council divided.
Site control. The task force was unable to reach consensus on how to get the property for the development and issued a majority opinion favoring the use of eminent domain and a minority opinion opposing it.
Despite the potential hurdles, City Planning Director and task force spokeswoman Susan Golomb said the plan was the result of a massive effort to determine what Pittsburgh wanted and needed for its retail corridor.“It’s simply a reflection of what we’ve been hearing that people want,” Golomb said. “We feel we’ve created a very exciting strategy.”
Unlike Murphy’s Market Place at Fifth & Forbes, which failed when Nordstrom Inc. opted not to build a Downtown store, the Plan C strategy seeks to build off of the existing foot traffic. The plan also calls for the addition of housing and a 600-room hotel; Murphy’s plan had no hotel component and housing was added only after critics attacked his plan.
Market Place called for the demolition of up to 62 Downtown buildings. The cleared land would have been sold to a private developer that would have built an upscale retail and entertainment district.
The plan was criticized on a variety of fronts: historic preservationists said Murphy was planning to demolish architectural gems; local merchants said they were being forced out to make way for national retailers, while others said the city couldn’t afford a $100 million subsidy for the $522 million project.
The task force was formed in November 2000, just days after Murphy scrapped the Market Place plan. Plan C stood for compromise, and Murphy charged the group with building consensus and developing a viable, Downtown redevelopment plan.
Gratz applauded the Plan C Task Force’s decision to preserve more buildings than Murphy’s original plan, but stressed that the plan would not be successful unless local businesses were preserved as well.
“The bottom line is that this plan has to have local character inside the buildings as well as on the outside,” Gratz said. “The big chain stores like Kmart are coming and going, but it’s the local businesses that stay generation after generation.”
The Plan C Task Force report hopes to have local and national retailers. Examples include chains such as Banana Republic and other stores that could enhance a shopping district that already boasts four large department stores. But the plans for the inclusion of local retailers didn’t satisfy George Harris, whose family has operated a florist at the corner of Liberty Avenue and Market Street for more than 100 years.
Harris said Friday he planned to fight any efforts made by the city to take his property. On the current plan, Harris’ shop is slated to be acquired and demolished.
“This site represents the comings and the goings, the place where my family has tread, in one form or another, for more than 100 years,” Harris said. “I have no compelling reason to dispose of my business, or to dispose of my property at this particular time. This is where I get my zest for life.”
Harris spoke at a news conference with Scott G. Bullock, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice. The Washington, D.C., group has offered to defend any Downtown property owners who want to fight eminent domain. It’s the same pledge the group made two years ago, when Murphy’s original plan called for taking property by eminent domain.
“The task force says eminent domain is necessary. That is nonsense. Development goes on everyday in this country without eminent domain,” Bullock said. “The property owners here support redevelopment. They just want to be a part of it.”
Bonnie Klein, who owns the Camera Repair Shop a block away from Harris Brothers Florist, sat on the task force. She said she supported the plan, but was one of three task force members who supported a minority opinion against using eminent domain.
“I think it’s a great plan, but I can’t support eminent domain,” Klein said. “I’m so disappointed that the task force decided to include it — I was hoping for a plan that would have included all business owners.”
Klein’s building is also slated to be acquired and demolished. She said she was unsure if she would fight eminent domain proceedings.
Margaret Philbin, spokeswoman for County Executive Jim Roddey, said that although Roddey had not yet seen the full plan, he was encouraged by the details he had heard about.
“He especially likes the marketplace, the hotel and, in particular, he likes the plan to increase the number of Downtown residents,” Philbin said. “He his, however, concerned about the threat to use eminent domain and hopes that that measure of taking would only be done as an absolute last resort, if at all.”
City Council members reached yesterday voiced no opposition to the plan as a whole, but expressed reservations about some of the issues at stake — including eminent domain.
“That’s not necessary if you have a good plan and it includes everybody,” City Councilman Bob O’Connor said.
Councilman Alan Hertzberg said there is some question about why private investors would want to pump $264 million into an ailing business district such as Fifth-Forbes, as the plan calls for.
“But usually when you do have public sector investment, it does tend to bring with it private sector investment. It kind of serves as seed money, or however you want to look at it,” Hertzberg said.
With the exception of O’Connor, council members said they hadn’t been shown the plan.
Planning director Golomb said the task force sent one copy to Councilman Sala Udin’s office, and another to be circulated among council members. Golomb said she assumed Udin — whose district includes the plan area, and whose assistant has attended the panel’s hearings — would bring his fellow council members up to speed on the plan.
“It’s Sala’s district, so we would take our lead from Sala,” said Golomb, adding that she would brief council on the plan next week. Udin declined to comment on the plan.
Dave Copeland can be reached at dcopeland@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7922.
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Fifth-Forbes New Plan
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has served as a member of the Plan C Task Force appointed by the Mayor to develop a new plan for the downtown central retail area, the plan was released on March 10th. We issue the following statements in support of the plan prepared by Hunter Associates, the consultant:
1. We feel the Hunter plan largely substantiates the Eckstut plan that we submitted two years ago and adds some useful new ingredients with the proposed hotel/condominium and the move of the public market to Murphy’s.
2. The Hunter plan also calls for purchase of properties, or in lieu of cash participation by building owners in the plan on an equity basis, something we advocated with the Eckstut plan.
3. We have learned that if URA is to be involved, eminent domain must be on the table legally. There is no way around it.
4. We believe the improvement of downtown retail offerings must be accompanied by significant housing, new and loft, specialty office space, hotel, public market and parking. The Hunter recommendations include those.
5. Negotiations that entail cash acquisitions will be carried out with eminent domain in the legal background because we understand that it will alleviate capital gain taxes for the property owners and enable them to obtain more money than fair market value for their buildings at perhaps 120%. That is the fairest route for the property owners; otherwise if the plan does not go forward the value of their buildings will probably go down.
Eminent domain is part of the required legal system affecting redevelopment authorities under Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Law, but it is not to be used as a threatening tool here, but rather as a financial tool to the benefit of the property owners.
6. Therefore we support the plan and Hunter’s recommendations on the basis that all property owners whose properties are needed for the execution of the plan will be offered cash sale or various ways to participate in the plan rather than accept cash acquisition if they wish it and may benefit financially if URA is the agent of acquisition.
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Task force backs eminent domain
By Dave Copeland
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, March 8, 2002A blueprint to redevelop much of Downtown, unveiled Thursday, calls on Mayor Tom Murphy to abandon his pledge not to use eminent domain.
The Plan C Task Force development strategy proposes a $360 million overhaul of Fifth-Forbes, including a hotel tucked between Market Square and Liberty Avenue, and retail, housing, office and entertainment space. Financing for the plan would include $51.5 million in public money, $39.5 million from corporate and philanthropic investment and $264 million in private investment.Highlights of the plan:
A 600-room hotel with 100 luxury condominiums on top of the hotel tower.
Up to 580 market-rate apartments.
A “shopping experience” in an open-space market to be built in the G.C. Murphy building, similar to Faneuil Hall in Boston.
Formed to build consensus on redevelopment proposals for the Fifth-Forbes corridor, the task force could not reach a consensus on eminent domain — a major sticking point in Murphy’s original plan. Some task force members continue to oppose its use. The report did not say which members favored using eminent domain, or how much of a majority of the 13-member body endorsed it.In a written statement, Murphy said he would take the committee’s report under review. He did not mention eminent domain.
The task force was formed in November 2000 after Murphy’s redevelopment plan fell apart. The plan called for the demolition of up to 62 buildings, one reason historic preservationists criticized it.
Cathy McCollom, a spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and a member of the task force, said the Plan C proposal was similar to a plan the foundation put together in 1999 as an alternative to Murphy’s plan.
Like the foundation plan, the Plan C proposal calls for more preservation of historic buildings and facades and has a strong housing component.
“The mayor’s plan was a demolition plan, but in this plan, a lot more buildings are retained,” McCollom said. “We’re pleased that preservation has remained a significant issue.”
Unlike Murphy’s original plan, the Plan C proposal includes residential and hotel components designed to bring more people who would support more businesses Downtown. The report notes that the strategy looks to combine local and national retailers.
Meanwhile, the Institute for Justice, a Washington, D.C., watchdog group that fights eminent domain, announced it would hold a news conference in Pittsburgh this morning. Scott Bullock, a senior attorney with the institute, said the group would make the same pledge it made during the debate over Murphy’s first plan: to defend Downtown property owners against eminent domain abuse.
“We are, of course, extremely disappointed that the task force has made the recommendation to use eminent domain,” Bullock said.
Bernie Lynch, a task force member who does not want to use eminent domain, originally called the institute to Pittsburgh. Lynch declined comment yesterday.
An e-mail sent by Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership Executive Director Mariann Geyer to partnership board members said that she had been told it could be several days or weeks before the mayor comments on the plan.
Geyer said in the memo that the partnership would work to implement the plan but would not take a stand on eminent domain because it “is not a decision for the PDP to make.”
If Murphy accepts the redevelopment strategy, the next step would be to issue a request for proposals to interested developers.
Any plan would need to be approved by several city bodies, including the planning commission, the Historic Review Commission, the Urban Redevelopment Authority and, finally, City Council.
Much of the report is based on the work of Don Hunter, an urban economist the task force hired last year. Yesterday’s release included a Feb. 26 memo from Hunter where he outlined 12 alternatives to eminent domain, while acknowledging he preferred using eminent domain as a course of last resort.
Hunter’s alternatives included negotiated sales, land swaps, leasing arrangements and partnerships.
Dave Copeland can be reached at dcopeland@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7922.
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A timely reminder
Wednesday, March 6, 2002
Fast on the heels of word that eminent domain is back on the table in Pittsburgh’s Downtown redevelopment efforts comes a new report on the abuse of eminent domain.
The Castle Coalition’s “Government Theft: The Top Ten Abuses of Eminent Domain, 1982-2002″ should be mandatory reading for the Plan C Task Force that this week is expected to adopt its Golden Triangle redevelopment blueprint. Among the examples:
Officials in Merriam, Kan., condemned one car dealership so a higher-profit BMW dealership could expand.
Riviera Beach, Fla., officials are uprooting 5,000 residents in favor of a privately owned commercial-industrial development.
Dana Berliner and Scott Bullock of the Institute for Justice are veterans of the eminent domain-heavy and now-scuttled Market Place battle in Pittsburgh. It’s the IOJ that’s behind the Castle Coalition, named so “because everyone’s home, and everyone’s property, is his castle.” Reminded Ms. Berliner and Mr. Bullock in a timely Monday commentary in The Washington Times:“Under our Constitution, our property rights are not conditioned on the whim of those with financial and political influence. Nor should they be sacrificed just so municipalities can put more money in their coffers.”
The sad thing is that no government should need to be reminded of this basic tenet of our republicanism. The sadder thing is that Pittsburgh’s central planners apparently never learned their lesson the first time around