Category Archive: Historic Properties
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Heinz Endowments Make Initial Grant for New Granada Restoration
The Heinz Foundation have announced a grant of $200,000 to Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation to work in partnership with the Hill Community Development Corporation (Hill CDC) to begin physical stabilization work for the New Granada Theatre and planning for its future use. The building was designed by Pittsburgh’s first African American architect Louis A. S. Bellinger (1891-1946). The Hill Community Development Corporation expects to have a matching grant from the State Department of Community and Economic Development.
PHLF’s Construction Manager Tom Keffer, will begin immediately to meet with engineers and contractors to further define the immediate work program and construction budget; Eugene Matta, Director of Special Projects for PHLF, will join the New Granada Planning Committee to bring his experience in heading the team that restored City Theatre in New York to the planning effort.
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Heinz grant to revitalize Hill District theater
Thursday, May 10, 2007
By Ervin Dyer,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteThe fading New Granada Theatre in the Hill District moved a step closer to new life yesterday, thanks to a $200,000 grant from The Heinz Endowments that will begin the process of stabilizing the storied theater.
The New Granada, one of the last remaining works of early 20th-century African-American architecture in Western Pennsylvania, is weathered from 40 years of neglect and non-use.
“We are so excited,” said Marimba Milliones, a member of a Hill committee leading the way to polish up the former movie house and ballroom. “The Granada is just the heart and soul of the Hill. Its rehab will re-awaken the hope and belief that the Hill is going to be a great community again.”
The Hill District grant will go to the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, working with the Hill Community Development Corp. to begin stabilizing the structure of the New Granada.
The building will require as much as $2 million to complete stabilization. The Heinz funding will be matched with a grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development. The funding also will support a team of local and national consultants studying possible uses for the theater.
The theater funding was among 221 grants totaling $36.9 million that The Heinz Endowments approved during a two-day meeting of the foundation board that ended yesterday.
The largest grant, $5 million, went to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh to create the Pediatric Environmental Medicine Center.
The program will be housed at the $575 million, green-certified hospital under construction in Lawrenceville,
The center will focus first on developing new approaches for the prevention and treatment of asthma due to its prevalence in minority and medically under-served communities, but also in response to recent reports identifying Pittsburgh as second from the bottom in air quality among American cities.
But the Environmental Medicine Center also will have the broader goal of making consideration of environmental links to health problems standard in any medical setting.
The grants reflect The Heinz Endowments’ new plan to shift at least 30 percent of its philanthropy over the next five years to special areas of concentration. These include supporting the reform of the Pittsburgh Public Schools; assistance with wiser economic development that is technologically and environmentally sound; and influencing the direction of Downtown development.
One grant that does the last is $200,000 for construction opportunities that will go to the Community Loan Fund of Southwestern Pennsylvania in partnership with the Minority and Women Educational Labor Agency. It is designed to help minority- and women-owned businesses to increase capacity so that they can successfully participate in larger construction jobs, especially those stemming from the boom in Downtown development.
The program will provide financial backing for certification requirements that will allow these firms to bid on progressively larger projects.
Other grants approved yesterday include:
$3 million to the Carnegie Museum of Art to cover costs of repairs made to skylights and ceilings in its galleries.
$2 million to the Pittsburgh Public Schools to continue the foundation’s support for Superintendent Mark Roosevelt’s Excellence for All Initiative.
$2 million to the Carnegie Library to provide renovation, remodeling and educational resources for branches in the Hill District, North Side and East Liberty.
$2 million to the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild to assist in establishing a $10 million endowment, and to support a new business plan designed to improve program quality and operating performance.
$747,000 to Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future for continued operating support of the environmental nonprofit.
A total of $700,000 to several grantees to support continued growth of charter and faith-based schools.
(Ervin Dyer can be reached at edyer@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1410. )
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Cork Factory apartments get bubbly reviews
By Ron DaParma and Sam Spatter
For the Tribune-Review
Saturday, May 5, 2007Debbie Dougherty gushes superlatives when she describes the two-bedroom loft apartment that she and her husband, Bill, share at the new Cork Factory apartments in the Strip District.
“It’s just so wonderful. We’re enjoying every minute of it,” said Dougherty, whose seventh-floor corner unit offers views of both the Allegheny River and Downtown. “We have brick walls and 17-foot ceilings, and it’s incredible,” she said.
Because her husband is retired and their four children have grown and moved, Dougherty said the couple decided to downsize from their large family home in Murrysville. They moved in March to the 297-unit luxury Cork Factory complex, which celebrated its grand opening Friday.
With 135 apartments — about 45 percent of the units — already scooped up by renters, the $70 million project is well ahead of its leasing goals, said Daniel McCaffery, of Daniel McCaffery Interests of Chicago.
“We’re very pleased,” said McCaffery, who developed the site in partnership with Charles Hammell III and Robert Beynon, the local businessmen who own the property on Railroad Street between 23rd and 24th Streets.
“The important thing is we are making our rental rate and renting at a pace that’s faster than we predicted,” McCaffery said.The developers expect the percentage figure will be close to 70 percent as early as the fall.
In addition to the apartments, interest also is high in the 48,000-square-feet of retail space available, he said. Leasing deals may be pending with two upscale restaurants and a local grocery store, he said.
The three-building complex originally was built as the home of the Armstrong Cork Co. in 1901. The estimated development is privately financed although federal tax credits for historic sites cover some of the costs.
So far, tenants are a mixture of young single professionals, many newcomers to the Pittsburgh, a smattering of suburbanites and elderly residents, said Debbie Roberts, Cork Factory general manager.
“We’ve met so many nice people,” Debbie Dougherty said. “We’ve even formed a dinner-out once-a-month group with people here, and it’s all ages — the young, the baby boomers and so forth.”
Now that leasing of apartments is well under way, the development team can move ahead on their plans to develop a private marina on the Allegheny River for the exclusive use of Cork Factory residents.
Also ahead is a river walk that will allow tenants to walk the grounds of the complex.
Other features include the historic, fully restored smokestack and engine room.
Under its current configuration, the complex offers 206 one-bedroom units; 73 two-bedroom, two-bath units; and 18 three-bedroom, two-bath units.
Studio apartments rent from $1,200; other one-bedroom units from $1,009 to $2,480; two-bedrooms from $1,499 to $2,850; and three-bedrooms from $3,430 to $3,800.
The complex offers a game room, 24/7 concierge service, complimentary wireless Internet in select common areas, and out-of-town services such as mail, newspaper and package pickup.
Other features, either already available or scheduled to be opened in the future, include patio/lounge area with fire pit, riverview barbecuing, swimming pool with landscaped deck, hot tub/spa, a courtyard garden, a fitness center, business center, dry cleaners and a 450-car parking garage located across Allegheny Valley Railroad Street.
As the Cork Factory nears completion, Hammel and Beynon can look back on nearly 11 years of frustration since they bought the property in a bankruptcy court sale in 1996.
Several times other investors had come board to help with the project, only to drop out before it could move forward.
“Today is culmination of a lot of hard work,” said Hammell, owner of the Pitt-Ohio Express trucking company in the Strip District. Beynon is owner of Beynon & Co., a Pittsburgh-based real estate and insurance company.
“I think it’s awesome what they’ve done with that building,” said Larry Lagattuta, owner of The Enrico Biscotti Co., an Italian bakery and cafe at 2202 Penn Ave. in the Strip.
“I think this can only help the Strip when you have more people living here,” said Lagattuta, whose has operated his business within two blocks of the Cork Factory for 15 years.
Lagattuta said his only concern is that the Cork Factory and other new developments in the Strip could attract national chains and franchise retailers, coffee shops, and the like that could possibly hurt locally owned businesses.
“We have to be careful about how those things happen,” he said. “But otherwise, lets get the people moving in and start shopping in the Strip,” he said.
“The Cork Factory is an excellent addition to the downtown housing mix,” said Patty Burk, vice president of housing and economic development for the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership.
“It adds to the diversity of units and income ranges that we are trying to achieve Downtown. It also represents the ‘New Downtown,’ which is becoming a mixed-use environment.”
“Even when were living in Murrysville, we would come into the city at the minimum, three days a week, for cultural events and ball games,” Dougherty said. “We loved the city so much, so we visited a few other loft apartments, but when we walked into the Cork Factory, we stopped. We said this was it.”
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Storm Damaged Allegheny Library Repaired
Today, the granite finial of the historic Allegheny Library was returned to its commanding position atop the clock tower after months of restoration work.The Allegheny Library, located next to the Children’s museum in Central Allegheny City, was struck by lighting last summer which caused extensive damage to the finial, causing it to break into several large pieces, some of which landed inside the building and some on the lawn outside. No one was injured.
The library itself is relocating to a new building soon to be erected on Federal Street just north of North Avenue. Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), working with the Children’s Museum and neighborhood North Side organizations, the Carnegie Library system, and the City, has commissioned studies by the architectural firm of Landmarks Design Associates for the possible adaptive use of the building.
The Allegheny Carnegie Library was the first Carnegie Library commissioned, but it opened later than the one at Braddock. It was designed by Smith, Meyer & Pelz in 1888-1889 In the 1970s, the City announced the demolition of the Library, but PHLF spearheaded a petition drive, accumulating 7,000 signatures.After that, the interior suffered unfortunate modernization, but the exterior is still in excellent condition. An interesting feature of the building is the slight lightening of color in the stone rising in the sections of the tower. Landmarks staff worked with Cost Corporation to try to achieve the appropriate coloration of the granite for
the finial.
The building is on the National Register of Historic Places, is a City designated landmark, and has PHLF plaque. -
Preserving a Sure-To-Be Landmark
The Pittsburgh area landscape is dotted with architectural landmarks that reflect the character of the people who built this community. We’re familiar with Richardson’s Courthouse, Hornbostel’s Rodef Shalom Synagogue and Wright’s Fallingwater. Yet, nestled among century-old houses near Chatham College on Woodland Road is a structural contradiction so magnificent in design that its architect now considers it one of his defining creations.
The post modernist home was designed in 1979 for Irving andBetty Abrams by internationally renowned architect Robert Venturi. From the outset, the project faced two major challenges: how to construct the house on a lot so small and damp that many builders didn’t want to tackle the job; and how to integrate the architect’s emphasis on form with the client’s need for function.
Like Wright and the Kaufmanns, Venturi and the Abrams found a way to fit an innovative design into a unique setting. Coming to agreement on function was a different story.
“I think I broke a few of his traditions, like putting a kitchen in the living room and moving an
eloquent stairway from within view of the front door,” says Betty. “All in all, however, we eventually got the job finished to our mutual satisfaction.”In the end, Betty got the changes she wanted, but Venturi distanced himself from the project until it was rediscovered during a Pittsburgh-hosted national design show in 2003 and praised by Richard Pain in a 2004 issue of the British journal Blueprint. In a personal letter to Betty, Venturi reassessed the Abrams house: “You should know that via Richard Pain’s recent and current focus on the Abrams’ house in general and then our visit to the house last November and my reviewing Richard’s distinguished manuscript on the house and our original drawings currently, I am now considering the project one of the best that has come out of our office which I am very, very proud of.”
The Abrams house is now considered such an important Venturi work that this Pittsburgh house was selected to be featured in Dream Homes of Greater Philadelphia. But this isn’t the end of the story. Several years ago, Betty hosted a Landmarks Heritage Society members tour. There, she couldn’t help but be impressed by the appreciation her guests had for her home. That’s when Betty began to think about taking steps to preserve her personal masterpiece. Since the house is not eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places until 2029, there would be no tax benefit associated with a gift of a preservation easement. A gift to endow monitoring costs associated with the easement would also be
required.After discussions with Landmarks’ planned giving office, Betty decided that if she could not find a way to acquire a preservation easement during her lifetime, she would take steps now to bequeath the house to Landmarks to fund a charitable gift annuity for each of her children. Not only would the gift associated with the annuities endow the preservation easement Landmarks would place on the property after her death, but Betty’s daughters would have lifetime income and never be burdened with the responsibility of selling the house.
Betty’s personality is reflected in the creativity of her house. Her legacy will be reflected in the creativity of her gift.
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Mt. Lebanon Municipal Golf Course: A slice of history for 9-holes
100th anniversary to be celebrated July 7Tuesday, May 01, 2007
By Gerry Dulac,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteIt will never hold a U.S. Open, not like the more famous Western Pennsylvania course that happens to have one of the same founding fathers. Nor will it be able to list a course-record score for 18 holes — at least, not anymore.
But there is a celebration going on this summer at Mt. Lebanon Municipal Golf Course, and it shares a slice of history with another local club planning a big summer celebration — Oakmont.
Mt. Lebanon will celebrate its 100th anniversary July 7, commemorating the history and origin of a course that began as a private 18-hole layout known as Castle Shannon Golf Club and was built by an erudite Scotsman named George Ormiston, one of the original members at Oakmont. What’s more, eight of the original greens remain at the municipal course — greens that appear to have been influenced by the great Scottish designer, Donald Ross.
“A lot of people have cut a lot of balata balls and lost a lot of balls there,” said Tom Butcher, a member of the golf committee appointed by Mt. Lebanon commissioners to oversee a five-year course renovation.
Appropriately, the course’s centennial anniversary will nearly coincide with the U.S. Open, which will be staged just three weeks earlier at Oakmont.
And, like Oakmont, the nine-hole golf course has been designated an historical Western Pennsylvania landmark through the Pittsburgh History & Landmark Foundation.
Mt. Lebanon Golf Course is something of an anomaly because it has lasted a century in one of the most desirable areas to live in Western Pennsylvania.
Built on 99 acres less than a mile from Castle Shannon Boulevard, it has avoided the real-estate or commercial development that has swallowed a number of public and private courses around the country.
Butcher said real-estate developers have estimated the value of the property site between $10 million and $17 million.
“It’s amazing we’ve lasted 100 years,” Butcher said.
But, it has, generating somewhere between an estimated 1 million to 1.4 million rounds of golf and employing only four head golf professionals in the course’s 100-year history.
The latest is Matt Kluck, a master PGA professional and one of the top instructors in the country.
He has been at Mt. Lebanon since 1983.
“Public golf courses have really been on the rise, particularly those that keep developing them and keep them up to snuff,” Mt. Lebanon councilman Dale Colby said. “With the cost of gasoline these days and people struggling to find time to play, it doesn’t pay in many respects to drive great distances to the golf course anymore.”
Mt. Lebanon was built by Ormiston, a former accomplished amateur player and first winner of the West Penn Amateur championship in 1899 when it was played at Schenley Park Golf Course, then known as the Pittsburgh Golf Club.
He was also president of the West Penn Golf Association from 1914 until his death in 1940.
Ormiston was born in Haddingtonshire, Scotland, in 1874 and migrated in 1888 to the Pittsburgh area, where his father owned a law firm and printing company. He was a close friend and associate of Oakmont founder Henry C. Fownes, who built the course that would go on to host 17 national championships in 1903.
Ormiston played at Oakmont and, along with Fownes, dominated amateur golf in Western Pennsylvania for much of the early 1900s. He also was on the committee for the first U.S. Open that was held at Oakmont in 1927. There is a picture in the Oakmont guesthouse of the first Oakmont golf team, and Fownes and Ormiston are seated next to each other.
It is not known how much input, if any, Ormiston had in the construction of Oakmont. But, in 1908, he was contracted to build an 18-hole golf course on a portion of farmland owned by William Smith, who bought the property located near the Pittsburgh & Castle Shannon Railroad in 1846.
Smith was the first to begin construction on the course, building three holes in the summer of 1907 before Ormiston was hired to lay out the course on paper.
Castle Shannon Golf Club opened nine holes on July 4, 1908 and expanded to 18 holes in 1910, according to documents contained in the club’s application for landmark status. Membership was $25.
“The railroad came right down here in Castle Shannon,” Kluck said, sitting inside the Mt. Lebanon clubhouse that was built in 1961. “People would get off the train and take buggies to the golf course.”
But here’s another twist:
Ormiston and Fownes spent winter months in Pinehurst, N.C., and Ormiston would often take his friend to visit another Scotsman who lived there, Donald Ross. The three would play golf together, and it is widely believed Ross, who would become one of America’s leading course architects, had an influence on the design of Oakmont’s world-famous greens because they bore similarities to the crowned surfaces at Pinehurst No. 2, a Ross masterpiece.
There has never been any documentation to suggest Ross helped Ormiston with the design of Castle Shannon’s greens. But, Kluck said, “I guess it’s possible.”
Indeed, when Craig Schreiner, a Myrtle Beach, S.C.-based architect, was retained by the municipality to oversee the course renovation, he detected more than a trace of Ross’s influence when he toured the nine-hole layout. Schreiner, a native of Akron, Ohio, who designs courses for The First Tee, specializes in restoring Ross designs.
“He said, ‘Someone was copying his philosophy,’ ” Butcher said.
Castle Shannon was reduced to nine holes in 1919 after a two-year period in which the club was inactive because of World War I and also lost members to the newly formed St. Clair Country Club.
It stayed that way till 1947, when Mt. Lebanon purchased the course and opened it to the public.
The golf professional at the time was Wally Grant, who was hired in 1937. He remained in that position until he died in January 1983.
Mt. Lebanon, which recently received landmark status, will have a July 7 celebration that will include family and sponsor tournaments, cocktail reception and entertainment.
Meantime, the course has just embarked on a five-year renovation plan that, if funding is appropriated, will ultimately include a new clubhouse, indoor learning center and outdoor practice range by 2010.
A new double-row irrigation system was installed in the fall. Construction will begin shortly on multiple tees on every hole, as well as all sand bunkers and greens complexes, a project Kluck hopes will be completed by June 1. Colby said the municipality has budgeted approximately $400,000 this year for the course renovation.
A new clubhouse is essential because Mt. Lebanon does not serve food or drinks, except from a vending machine. That prevents the course from holding outings, typically a great source of revenue.
“We want the kind of improvements that will make it more profitable and more of a broad facility, not just for Mt. Lebanon residents but South Hills residents, as well,” Butcher said. “With Baldwin, Bethel Park, Peters Township, Scott, you have a tremendous demographic with all kinds of people.”
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Repairs on North Side library branch expected by early summer
By Bill Zlatos
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, April 10, 2007The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh expects to finish repairing damage done by a lightning bolt at the former Allegheny branch by early this summer.
“In the next few weeks, they’ll place the actual capstone upon the clock tower,” said library spokeswoman Suzanne Thinnes.Lightning struck the 117-year-old, Romanesque-style library in the North Side’s Allegheny Square on April 7, 2006. It has been closed since, and plans call for it to no longer be used as a library.
A piece of granite weighing several hundred pounds fell into the lecture hall on the second floor, and a one-ton chunk destroyed the building’s heating and cooling system and damaged waterlines.
The collapse did not injure anyone or damage the library’s collection.
The repairs will cost an estimated $2 million. Insurance will cover most of that, Thinnes said.
North Side-based Mascaro Construction is doing the work. “We chose them because they have expertise in repairing historical buildings,” she said.
The building was named a historic landmark by Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation in 1970 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places four years later.
“The work that’s going on is helping its historical fabric, not hurting it,” assured foundation President Arthur P. Ziegler Jr.
Carnegie Library is planning a new building along Federal Street, and will not be using the Allegheny branch building after the repairs are done.
The New Hazlett Theater and a city senior citizen center occupy the building. Landmark Design Associates, a South Side firm, is studying possible uses for the space once used by the library.
Ziegler said one option is office space, possibly for a nonprofit group.
The library hopes to break ground on the Federal Street building this fall, Thinnes said.
Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7828.
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Old church murals cast in new light in Strip District
By Angela Hayes
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteJosie Santapietro always had a habit of looking up while praying in church, but during tonight’s Easter vigil she and other parishioners may find new inspiration to worship.
During the Mass, which begins in total darkness and then gradually illuminates with light, St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in the Strip District will unveil its new lighting system, a project that will bring the church’s 120-year-old ceiling murals to life.
Before, “you always looked at them but you didn’t really see them,” said Ms. Santapietro, the rectory secretary.
“I equate it to our own kind of Sistine Chapel,” said Derris Jeffcoat, the sacristan.
The project was started after a smoking chandelier prompted a visit from the city Fire Department. Fire officials at the time told the Rev. Harry Nichols, pastor of the church, to replace the electrical wiring immediately.
With a wealth of history behind the church, the decision to renovate was obvious. So far, the church has received $80,000 in donations to help fund the $300,000 project.
Although the project began as a safety necessity, Father Nichol’s saw it as an opportunity to emphasize the building’s architecture and paintings.
Lighting designers from Astorino, the Downtown architectural firm, used new lamp designs to enhance and protect the paint of the murals and to bring out the ornate detail of wooden columns in the church, down to the tiniest leaf.
“It’s showing up things in the church we’ve never seen before,” Father Nichols said.
In a church where it used to be difficult to read a book of hymns, the new light system is something the parish is celebrating.
Each of the murals represents a significant event in either the history of the Catholic Church or in Polish history.
During a test-run of the lighting project, Mr. Jeffcoat saw the difference in visibility of the murals. With the lights switched on, he saw a mural painted around 1900 of Polish king Jan Sobieski defeating the Turkish army in the battle of Vienna in 1683 and pointed out the vivid color.
“No one’s ever seen the murals like this,” he said.
During the project, lighting designers worked with Mr. Jeffcoat and Father Nichols to ensure that the approximately 106 new light fixtures were carefully hidden from view. The team also chose two custom-made chandeliers that fit the church’s present architecture, matching a pattern found in the church pews.
Unveiling the project at tonight’s Easter vigil is symbolic to Mr. Jeffcoat and the congregation because the Mass is actually a ceremony to honor light.
“We couldn’t think of a better time to inaugurate the lighting,” he said.
“To have Christ light up our church and to have our church physically light up — it gives me goosebumps.”
