Category Archive: Historic Properties
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Councilman protests forced preservation of Malta Temple
By Jeremy Boren
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, July 15, 2008Forcing the Salvation Army to preserve an 81-year-old North Side religious and social services center would violate a city rule that says a church’s owner — not interlopers — must willingly seek historic protection, a Pittsburgh councilman said Monday.”Churches have an inherent right to have control over their own property,” said the Rev. Ricky Burgess, a councilman and pastor of Nazarene Baptist Church in Homewood. “They have autonomy in terms of seeking historic designation.”To back up his claim, Burgess cited a 2003 amendment to the city’s historic preservation law sponsored by then-Councilman Bob O’Connor.
The amendment states: “Nomination of a religious structure shall only be made by the owner(s) of record of the religious structure.”
A religious structure is defined as a “place of religious worship.”O’Connor fought for the amendment under the belief that some churches can’t afford to make repairs or facade improvements to comply with historic preservation standards.
Burgess said Sunday church services have been held regularly for nearly 35 years in the Salvation Army-owned property commonly known as the Malta Temple building because it is the former headquarters of the Ancient and Illustrious Order of the Knights of Malta.
The nonprofit Mexican War Street Society, a historic preservation group, nominated the Malta Temple for historic protection in January to prevent the Salvation Army from demolishing it.
The city Planning Commission and Historic Review Commission approved the nomination. It faces a preliminary vote Wednesday before City Council.
David McMunn, president of the society, said the Malta Temple is zoned as a commercial structure, not as a church. Allegheny County assessment records confirm that.
McMunn said tearing down the stately brick building at 100 W. North Ave. and replacing it with a modern building nearby would remove an important thread from the North Side’s already frayed historic fabric.
McMunn and other historic preservationists want the building to be renovated.
“The Salvation Army has first and foremost been a place of worship,” said Maj. Jim LaBossiere, Allegheny County coordinator for the organization.
LaBossiere agreed with Burgess’ argument.
He said religious services are held at 9:30 and 11:30 every Sunday morning in the Malta Temple building. The center doubles as a daytime homeless shelter where the indigent can receive lunch, counseling and use shower and laundry facilities.
Salvation Army officials have said previously that renovations would be too costly and that the building isn’t large enough to accommodate plans for additional worship, classroom, gymnasium and computer lab space.
“They don’t seem to see the need to partner with the neighborhood,” McMunn said. “Well, they need to because, as residents, we’re here forever.”
Jeremy Boren can be reached at jboren@tribweb.comor 412-765-2312.
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Urban Redevelopment Authority completes Millcraft deal
By staff and wire reports
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Tuesday, July 8, 2008The Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority completed the $2.31 million sale of five Downtown buildings, including the former G.C. Murphy store, to Washington County developer Millcraft Industries Inc.The deal was completed June 30 and deeds recorded July 3 in Allegheny County. The authority board approved the sale at its June 12 meeting. The properties will comprise Millcraft’s Market Square Place project, a mixed-use development that will include the future home of the Greater Pittsburgh YMCA.The Bedell Building, the Headgear Building, the Candyrama Building and the D&K Building, at the Fifth and Forbes corridor, are included in the sale.
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Buhl Building ready for its closeup
Friday, July 04, 2008
The Buhl Building long has been one of Downtown’s unsung background buildings, a fantasy in blue and white that you could only enjoy by craning your neck up, up, up. No more.
Since the demolition of buildings in the triangle where Fifth and Liberty avenues meet, the Buhl Building has taken on a cameo role in the Market Square city historic district. Its new visibility promises to be long-lasting because PNC, which is putting up the glass and steel tower across Fifth Avenue, won’t build on the triangle and instead will develop it as a small park.
Completed in 1913, the Buhl Building at 200 Fifth Ave. is clad in classical terra-cotta ornament, but not the usual cream-on-cream variety. The architect, Janssen & Abbott, called for blue and cream glazed tiles, and it’s a tour de force of urns, swags, plates and cartouches — a tapestry of Wedgwood Jasperware on a grand scale.
“How improbable this large-windowed but narrow six-story Renaissance Revival office tower must have seemed, covered in blue and white tile like an Italianate wedding cake in a then dark and sooty city,” former Post-Gazette art and architecture critic Donald Miller wrote in his 1997 book, “The Architecture of Benno Janssen.”
The client was Schenley Farms developer Franklin Nicola, and it was first called the Nicola Building. In the same few years, between 1909 and 1916, Janssen’s firm also was designing the Pittsburgh Athletic Association, Masonic Temple, William Penn Hotel and another terra-cotta building — a 13-story addition to Kaufmann’s department store.
By as early as 1923, the Nicola Building had a new owner — Henry Buhl Jr., partner in Boggs & Buhl department store on the North Side and founder of the Buhl Foundation. By the 1960s, if not earlier, the first-floor exterior had been renovated in dark, stark granite, so at street level there’s no hint of what we imagine was a light and lively original treatment. What a lift it must have been to walk along Fifth Avenue and see the hand of the craftsman.
But whose work was it? Were the tiles stock patterns made distinctive by the dichromatic glazing, or were they, more likely, custom-designed for the building by one of Janssen’s draftsmen? By 1909 there were about 15 makers of architectural terra cotta in the eastern United States. There’s no definitive proof in the Janssen papers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Architecture Archives, so we may never know.
A cream terra-cotta-clad building on the opposite side of Fifth Avenue, originally the Reymer’s Building, was demolished to make way for the PNC tower, so there is some karmic balance in the revelation of the Buhl Building — and more reason than ever to return its first floor to something closer to the original.
“Our intention is to remove the granite and put back the tall windows,” which were arched, said Nick Nicholas, who bought the building with Jim Patrinos in December.
The challenge is what to do with the upper floors, said Nicholas, who also owns Nicholas Coffee in Market Square.
They are considering office space or apartments or perhaps a combination of the two, but they may have to wait for the market to come to them. The Buhl Building is on the National Register of Historic Places, so the project will benefit from a 20 percent federal tax credit. The owners have given Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation an easement on the facade, so it’s protected in perpetuity.
“If we restore it to a boutique building, it could be the best little boutique building Downtown, but how do we get small upscale businesses to take it?” Nicholas said. “You’ve got to almost wait until PNC and Murphy’s are done and maybe they’ll be knocking on our door for space there.”
Millcraft Industries soon will begin to convert the former G.C. Murphy Co. store into 46 apartments, a relocated YMCA and first-floor retail space.
Architecture critic Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590.First published on July 4, 2008 at 12:00 am -
Market Square street closure may alter apartment project
By Jeremy Boren
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, July 3, 2008The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, a major investor in Market Square’s revitalization, might nix a new seven-unit apartment complex if the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership sticks to a plan to close some of the square to vehicles.The foundation is spending $3.5 million to renovate three vacant buildings on Graeme Street into Market at Fifth, a plan for seven upper-floor apartments, a ground-floor restaurant and a rooftop garden.
The partnership’s plan would close Graeme, the apartments’ entrance, and nearby McMasters Way as part of a $4.8 million to $5 million Market Square overhaul that, so far, has gone smoothly.
“We do not see how people are going to want to rent apartments on a dead-end street. People do not frequent dead-end streets,” said attorney Anne E. Nelson, who voiced the concerns at a meeting of the city Historic Review Commission.
“If Graeme Street is closed, Landmarks does not know whether it should complete construction of the project,” Nelson said.Arthur P. Ziegler, the foundation’s president, said there’s time to develop the apartments as something else if a compromise can’t be reached and the street is closed.The commission approved Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership’s preliminary plans for Market Square, but members urged the partnership, a nonprofit that represents Downtown business owners, to find a solution with the foundation.
“We’re going to do what’s best for the square,” said Dina Klavon, the designer the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership hired to guide Market Square’s overhaul.
Klavon said she’s open to changes and plans to meet with Pittsburgh History & Landmarks officials.
“We’re trying to give Market Square back to the pedestrian,” said Mike Edwards, president of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. “Right now it’s a thoroughfare. We want it to be a destination.”
Edwards said renovation of Market Square could start in spring.
The most striking feature about Klavon’s design is that it would make Market Square resemble a one-level European piazza.
The roadway would be flush with sidewalks and outdoor cafes, which would be differentiated by using various types of pavement and cobblestone.
Traffic and parking would be permitted on the perimeter of the square. No traffic would be allowed in the middle, where Market Street and Forbes Avenue meet.
Jeremy Boren can be reached at jboren@tribweb.comor 412-765-2312.
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Former church in West Tarentum caught up in fraud scandal
By Celanie Polanick
VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Thursday, July 3, 2008A former Roman Catholic church in West Tarentum was one of two in the Greater Pittsburgh area bought by Raffaello Follieri, an Italian real estate mogul recently accused of fraud for pretending to work for the Vatican.A century ago, St. Clement’s Church on West Ninth Avenue and Center Street was beautiful and beloved, filled with a blossoming faith community, according to historical accounts. But, like so many other churches, membership declined over the decades.After St. Clement’s closed in 2006, one of Follieri’s numerous corporations — CV12 216 W. Ninth Avenue LLC — bought the property in January 2007.
Follieri was arrested last week by federal investigators and accused of improperly spending money from investors, who believed he represented the Vatican’s financial and land interests.Now, local officials say, they’re not sure what will happen to St. Clement’s.Men from the Vatican
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, from June 2005 through June 2007, Follieri ran a fraudulent real estate investment scheme, claiming that he had close connections with the Vatican — enabling him to purchase Catholic church properties at prices well below their market value.
He allegedly told people he formally was appointed by the Vatican to manage its financial affairs. Investigators say he raised investment capital for an “Italian office” that didn’t exist, including $800,000 on bogus “engineering reports” and other falsified business expenses.
Federal prosecutors say they have ample evidence that he spent as much as $6 million from his investors on a jet-setting lifestyle for himself, a girlfriend and others. The girlfriend is said to be actress Anne Hathaway, who dated Follieri for four years. Tabloid reports say the pair split last week.
Follieri is charged with various counts of conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering. If he receives the maximum sentence, Follieri would spend life in prison and pay millions of dollars in fines.
A federal district court judge set Follieri’s bail at $21 million — $16 million must be in cash or property. Follieri also must relinquish his passport and get five other people to co-sign, assuming responsibility if he tries to escape. At press time, he was still in federal custody.
Undervalued
When Follieri’s company bought the former St. Clement’s property from the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh in January 2007, it was valued at $407, 000 — $337,000 for the building and $70,000 for the 23,000 square feet of adjoining land. Follieri, though, paid only $252,000 for it, according to Allegheny County records.
Follieri’s company also bought St. Patrick’s in Alpsville, Allegheny County, said the Rev. Ron Lengwin, diocesan spokesman.
“We were prepared to sell them (other unused properties), but it never got that far,” Lengwin said.
Follieri’s representatives did not tell diocesan officials they had ties to the Vatican, said Lengwin.
“Any church official could tell who was from the Vatican and who was not,” he said.
The property was sold to Follieri at the reduced price because “when you sell a piece of property that no one else wants, you have to sell it to the person who wants to buy it for what they’re willing to pay,” Lengwin said.
By the end of the year, the property was back on the market for $425,000.
The marketing agent trying to sell it, James Kelly of Grubb & Ellis in Pittsburgh, said he could not comment, as part of his contract with Follieri’s company.
Multiple calls to Follieri Group’s main switchboard were forwarded by a receptionist to a non-working number.
Tarentum Borough Manager Bill Rossey said he had heard about Follieri but didn’t know he owned the former St. Clement’s property and had heard nothing about what might happen to it now.
According to staff at the U.S. Marshals’ Department of Asset Forfeiture, if Follieri is convicted of obtaining his assets fraudulently or using legitimately obtained assets to commit a crime, those assets could be seized and sold to pay restitution to the people he cheated. Other options include a plea agreement to sell the properties and liquidate the assets to pay restitution or other penalties.
At last estimate, the building needs about $400,000 in work before it could be used again, including the roof and mildew removal, said local Catholic historian Charles “Skip” Culleiton of New Kensington.
Former parishioners and local Catholics probably would like to see the building used to provide some social service or for another purpose that could improve the community, which is what Follieri’s corporation originally promised, Culleiton said.
“That would probably make (parishoners, Catholics) them feel better about the whole thing,” Culleiton said.
Celanie Polanick can be reached atcpolanick@tribweb.com or 724-226-4702
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Public Hearing at Historic Review Commission on Redesign of Market Square
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF
ANNE E. NELSON, ESQ.
GENERAL COUNSEL
PITTSBURGH HISTORY & LANDMARKS FOUNDATION
BEFORE HISTORIC REVIEW COMMISSION, CITY OF PITTSBURGH
PUBLIC HEARING ON MARKET SQUARE REDESIGN
JULY 2, 2008
Landmarks is investing $3.5 million to restore four historic buildings in Market Square located between Market and Graeme Streets, the design of which was predicated on Market and Graeme being open to vehicular traffic from Fifth Avenue into the Square. This project includes retail on the first floor and seven affordable apartments on the upper floors that will use Graeme Street as an entrance. We will have a green roof and are doing the buildings to LEED standards.
However, the redesign plans chosen close Graeme Street and that has us alarmed. We do not see how people are going to want to rent apartments on a dead end street. People do not frequent dead end streets; they want the ability to bring people to the door, load and unload things. Furthermore, how will the trash be collected?
Historically, Market Square has always had full traffic access. Removing traffic from the street has worked almost nowhere in the United States and almost every street where traffic was removed has been reconverted to have traffic flowing again in order to bring people back. Examples of traffic removed include East Liberty and Allegheny Center in Pittsburgh, and traffic was eliminated on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia and Fourth Street in Louisville and both lost retail and now have it back since traffic was reopened.
If Graeme Street is closed, Landmarks does not know whether it should complete construction of the project. I ask you, would you like to live on a dead end street that has no provisions for dropping off or turning around? When thinking about this question, remember that in Pittsburgh during a lengthy part of the year, the days are short and the weather is bad.
We question our investment of $3.5 million in Market Square if Graeme Street is closed.
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Public Hearing on St. Mary’s Academy Building
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF
ANNE E. NELSON, ESQ.
GENERAL COUNSEL
PITTSBURGH HISTORY & LANDMARKS FOUNDATION
BEFORE HISTORIC REVIEW COMMISSION, CITY OF PITTSBURGH
PUBLIC HEARING ON ST. MARY’S ACADEMY BUILDING
CITY HISTORIC STRUCTURE NOMINATION
JULY 2, 2008
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (Landmarks) strongly supports the nomination of the Academy Building of the St. Mary’s Church complex to become a City-Designated Historic Structure.
The St. Mary’s Academy Building was listed on the first county-wide architectural survey conducted in the United States, undertaken by Landmarks in 1966, and chosen as one of the buildings published in Landmark Architecture of Allegheny County Pennsylvania by James D. Van Trump and Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr. The Academy Building was also listed in 1979 in the second countywide survey of historic architectural sites conducted by Landmarks, in association with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It was chosen for inclusion as one of 600 out of the 10,000 surveyed in the major book based on this survey, Pittsburgh’s Landmark Architecture by Walter C. Kidney, published in 1997. Both Van Trump and Kidney consider the Greek Revival c. 1850 Academy Building a significant surviving example of an important American architectural style. Furthermore, its “curious ornamental cast iron porch” is “the sort usually associated with New Orleans or Mobile although once common too in the industrial North.”
In 1989 historian Roger Kennedy noted in his National Trust book Greek Revival America: “The Northern Greek Revival was at least as vigorous and diverse as that in the antebellum South; but all the great houses of the North … have fallen victim to that region’s industrial success.” This is also true of banks, courthouses, and modest Greek Revival structures like St. Mary’s Academy, and we should protect the limited number of survivors.
Of the buildings in the St. Mary’s Church complex, the Academy Building is not only the oldest, but is the most architecturally unique and should, therefore, be deemed a City-Historic Structure.
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Dramatic redesign approved for Market Square
Wednesday, July 02, 2008The city of Pittsburgh’s Historic Review Commission today approved a dramatic redesign of Downtown’s Market Square, clearing the way for construction planning but urging that the architects meet with Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation officials about their concerns.
The redesign would allow car traffic around the outside of the square, but not in the streets that run through its center. It would replace the network of streets, curbs, and raised tree planters with a flat piazza, where driving, parking, dining and walking would be demarcated by different paving materials.
Closed to cars would be Graeme Way and McMasters Way, which link the square to Fifth Avenue.
“We’re trying to give Market Square back to the pedestrians,” said Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership President Mike Edwards, whose group is leading the charge on the $5 million reworking of the square. “Right now, it’s a thoroughfare. We want it to be a destination.”
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation is concerned that the closure of Graeme Way to vehicles may crimp access to four buildings that it is renovating at a cost of $3.5 million, said Anne E. Nelson, the foundation’s attorney. The entrances to the second- and third-floor apartments will be off of Graeme Way, she said.
“If people want to drop other people off, or unload things to their apartments, they can’t get there,” Ms. Nelson said.
The commission placed one condition on its approval: that architect Dina Klavon meet with Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation to work through its concerns. Ms. Klavon will bring more detailed drawings back to the commission for a final approval. Construction could start in the spring.
Overall, Historic Review Commission members gushed.
“This will be a miniature Parisian square,” said commission Vice Chairman Paul Tellers.
“The elegance will be the ‘wow’ factor,” said commission Chairman Michael Stern.
More details in tomorrow’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.First published on July 2, 2008 at 4:33 pm