Category Archive: Neighborhood Development
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Poke Run Presbyterian Church Divided Over Historic Building
By Chuck Biedka, VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Friday, September 10, 2010
Last updated: 7:11 am
From left, Emma and Jim Dunmire, of Washington Township; Jack and Eleanor Zerbini, of Salem Township; Maynard Miller, of Kiski Township; and Kathy Moneymaker, of Washington Township, all gather together in front of the Academy Building located beside the Poke Run Church located in Washington Township on Thursday. Erica Hilliard/Valley News Dispatch
Nine members of Poke Run Presbyterian Church are asking Westmoreland County Court to side with history and preserve the church’s academy building and its contents.
The four couples and one individual filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop their congregation from demolishing the academy building and prevent the sale of antiques or other items inside.
Trustees insist that the congregation followed all congregational and Redstone Presbytery rules when it voted, 61-49, in June to demolish the wooden academy building, said trustee Vice President Walt Lange yesterday.
Trustee President Vince Goodiski said the congregation, organized in 1785, attracts 150 people to its two Sunday services. The church is located along Poke Run Church Road in Washington Township, across Route 66 from the intersection with Route 366.
Poke Run Presbyterian Church in Washington Township
Goodiski, a member since the 1980s, said the members voted to use the space to add an elevator and ground-floor access to the fellowship hall in the basement of the church.
The academy building has “no amenities, a crumbling foundation, musty smell,” and its metal roof recently sustained wind damage, he said.
Goodiski also said an older $10,000 ramp leading to the front of the church is inadequate and, at the back of the church, a $7,000 chair lift needs to be replaced to accommodate wheelchairs.
“It’s not feasible to fix the lift, and people who use the ramp and come into the church late are immediately seen by everyone else,” he said.
The nine members believe the handicap access is sufficient, and they want to have the building that opened in 1889 classified as a historic structure, member Maynard Miller said.
Both sides in the dispute retain deep emotional attachment to the church, even if they disagree about the fate of the academy building. Many have attended the church for decades.
Miller, whose name appears first on the lawsuit, said the academy served as the township’s first high school, starting in about 1919 and lasting about 10 years.
Miller said his wife, Martha, was baptized in the church, and she married him there in 1946.
James W. Dunmire is among those who are asking for an injunction.
“This is historic. We don’t want the building destroyed,” Dunmire said.
Goodski said the congregation has dealt with the issue for “at least five or six years” and this is “not something that came up as a last minute thing as they are trying to say.”
Goodski said they have offered the building to the nine “and anyone else to move it.”
One solution may be to “put the building on a slab” and move it elsewhere on the church property, he said, although that could be tricky because of the condition of the academy and its maintenance budget.
Goodiski could not say how much the church has spent on the building.
The church land includes the academy and church as well as an education building.
Goodiski and Lange believe the education building can be enlarged to handle community meetings, including those for the Kiski Valley Habitat for Humanity and Beaver Run Community 4-H Club.
He said the congregation wants to remove the building “so that we can better reach out into the community.”
The complaint includes a request for an injunction but a hearing on that hasn’t been scheduled.
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Hiding in Plain Sight: A House as Old as Larryville
The house on the southwest corner of 38th St. and Charlotte Street in Lawrenceville is up for sale. It was bult a decade after Lawrenceville became a town in 1814.
We know this because house historian Carol Peterson, a denizen of Larryville, researched the records. The house you see now — ruddy-colored clapboards, patched in part with old tin advertisements — encloses the original log home that was built in the 1820s. The “new” part is from the 1870s. That’s Michael Connors in front of it. Michael has been part of the Lawrenceville Historical Sociaty’s efforts over the years to get it, and to have it renovated.
Read Michael’s “Next Page” in the Post-Gazette on Sept. 12 for a story about one of the buildings past inhibitants, a teenager who packed munitions and died in the deadly arsenal explosion of 1882. And, by the way, thanks to Matt Smith, who was walking along with a smart phone and agreed to take the photo you see. (So, OK, the sun was in the wrong place.)
For some time, heavy hitters including the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, Sen. Jim Ferlo and other public officials, were at least cheering on the historical society’s effort, Michael tells me.
Arthur Ziegler, president of Landmarks, said the interest and needed money could not be reconciled. “We don’t have many log houses left and we would like to save them,” he said, “but this had been so changed over the years, to put it back the way it was would have meant cutting new logs.”
The historical society “knew it was way beyond our ability” to afford and renovate, Michael said.
It is owned by a limited partnership. Historical Society members toured it a few years ago when the owners wanted $39,000. We’re trying to find out the asking price from the Realtor.
This building was part of the original town of Lawrenceville that composer Stephen Foster’s father subdivided. In 1841, Lawrenceville town was carved out of Pitt Township roughly from 38th to 41st Streets and from Woolslayer to the Allegheny River, Carol said. Lawrenceville was incorporated as a borough in 1834.
“Just think that someone in this house could have walked up the street to see the Marquis de Lafayette when he visited Pittsburgh” in 1825, Michael said. In case history isn’t your subject, Lafayette was a hero of both the French and American revolutions and knew George Washington.
He was our first president.
Michael said his dream is that UPMC, whose Children’s Hospital presence is “the biggest and newest” in the neighborhood, offers the needed largesse “for the smallest and oldest” and help Lawrenceville showcase one of its original structures, which could be an attraction for visitors to the hospital.
Walkabout is putting it out there, like a butterfly wish that might merge with the fluttering fancy of the right person…or institution.
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Sculpture of Steel Worker to Highlight Natrona Heritage Park
By Tom Yerace, VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Tuesday, September 7, 2010Natrona’s history is forever linked to industry, and that is the focus of a new park being planned there.
“We’ve been working with Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, and one of the focuses of Natrona Comes Together is to preserve the history of Natrona,” said Bill Godfrey, president of the grassroots neighborhood improvement group, in discussing the proposed Natrona Heritage Park.
Natrona’s first major industry was salt mining by The Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Co. dating to 1850. In fact, Godfrey said the park site, which is about 100 feet by 100 feet, is the site of the old Penn Salt company store.
Although Penn Salt evolved into a chemical conglomerate, it eventually became overshadowed in Natrona by the steel industry and Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp., now known as ATI-Allegheny Ludlum.
It is the steel industry that is the focus of the heritage park, according to Godfrey and Stephen Paulovich, the New Kensington native who is a renowned Louisville, Ky.-based sculptor.
Paulovich is known throughout the Alle-Kiski Valley for his sculptures at the coal miners memorial in Harmar and for the statue of New Kensington football legend Willie Thrower at Valley High School’s stadium.
According to Paulovich, the park’s dominant structure will be a sculpture of an 8-foot-high steel worker set on a base that will have the sculpture rise 18 feet above the park.
In addition, there will be smaller sculptures of buildings in Natrona, some of which still exist, he said.
Paulovich said he will donate his services, including any foundry work.
“I was trying to get something more public art-oriented,” Paulovich said. “Things that are more historical that kids can walk around and look at.
“We want to incorporate some of the buildings … some of them might (still) be there, some might not,” he added. “Those buildings were so important. And if it wasn’t for steel, they wouldn’t be there.”
Among the buildings Paulovich included in his initial drawings were the Pond Street School, St. Ladislaus Church and the Windsor Hotel.
“People in New Kensington might get mad at me, but I think Natrona is the gem, architecturally, of that area,” he said.
Paulovich and Godfrey said they plan to put the project in motion within the next week or two.
They and Natrona Comes Together are developing the project with Frank McCurdy of Harrison, who taught architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, before retiring. He also is a member of the Natrona Comes Together board, Godfrey said.
“We have absolutely no money for it yet, but we have strong passion for finding funds,” Godfrey said.
“We’re going to approach Allegheny Ludlum and the unions and get some other private financing,” he said. He said that they don’t have a firm cost estimate yet. “We’ll give a presentation to anybody that will be very clear and will leave nothing to the imagination. It will be like ‘This is what you get for your dollar.’ It will be like selling any other product.
“I think it is only fair that Allegheny Ludlum celebrates the history of the steel workers who actually built the company with their sweat and toil,” Godfrey said. “We have not approached them, but we are very excited about trying to get them to donate.
“It could be a model for how a steel mill improves the quality of life for a community.”
To underscore the community’s ties to steelmaking even further, Paulovich wants to cast the sculptures in stainless steel, Allegheny Ludlum’s core product for decades.
“I was going to do it in bronze, but it just doesn’t make sense. Bronze? In a steel town?” Paulovich said. “If the guys are making stainless down there, why can’t we use stainless/”
Also, Paulovich wants those “guys” to be involved with the project.
“We want to get some of the welders from Allegheny Ludlum to come down and help us put this together for us,” he said. “I don’t sweat like they do in 4,000 degrees; they need this. It’s just amazing what they do. They have to do it, it’s going to be their sculpture.”
“For them to drive by with their kids and hear them say, ‘Hey, Dad did that,’ that would be great,” Paulovich said.
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Historical Group Seeks Bell From Kittanning’s Town Hall
by Renatta Signorini
Leader Times
Thursday, September 9, 2010
KITTANNING A local group is on a quest to find a bell that once stood high above Market Street in Kittanning’s former town hall.
Joie Pryde has driven plenty of back roads in search of the bell without luck.
“We are on a quest to acquire that bell, restore it” and get boroough permission to place it in Riverfront Park, Pryde said.
It’s the latest mission of the Kit-Han-Ne Questers, a group of local residents dedicated to the preservation and restoration of historic sites and artifacts. The group is hosting the 11th annual Antiquing Along the Allegheny this Saturday in an effort to raise money for reatoration of the bell if they ever find it.
This year’s Antiquing Along the Allegheny features about 60 vendors sprawled out in Kittanning Riverfront Park, selling antiques and handmade crafts including toys, furniture and glassware. Quester Carolyn Schrecengost said some vendors are local residents who don’t have their own shops.
“We have them coming from all around,” said Quester Rovena Chauvaux.
She will be one of the vendors using the event to make room at own home for more antiques. Chauvaux said she will be selling vases, toys and Christmas decorations, among other items.
The local chapter of the Questers is linked to the International Questers, an antique study group with members in the United States and Canada. The group requires that chapters spend any money raised on restoration projects.
In the past, the Kit-Han-Ne Questers have restored stained glass windows, the portraits of four judges in the courthouse and old theater seats.
The project completed with funds from last year’s antiquing event was purchasing three lights for the kitchen and dining room at the McCain House Museum in Kittanning that are now on display.
“We wanted to get the time period suitable,” Chauvaux said.
The new lights are circa 1900 and replaced fixtures that were from a more recent time period.
“Really, they stuck out like a sore thumb, especially the ones in the kitchen because they were obviously ’50s,” Pryde said.
She has gotten a variety of information on the local bell that once hung in Kittanning’s town hall, which was located in the building that now houses First National Bank, but has not had luck finding the piece of local history. Pryde said she has learned that the bell is apparently dated 1906 and could be located somewhere in the Harrison Township area.
Historical societies in that area have made mention of a “bell haven” that was once in a collectors yard, but Pryde has not been able to locate it.
“We’ve hit a dead end everywhere,” she said.
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Restoration of Panther Hollow Makes Huge Progress With $1 Million Grant
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
The Richard King Mellon Foundation recently awarded a $1 million grant to the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy to create a management plan for Panther Hollow watershed. Panther Hollow, located in Schenley Park, has long been plagued by pollution and invasive species, and the grant will be a huge boost in the effort to restore the important body of water, which once featured a boathouse, and was a popular destination for families.
“We’ll use professionals, and we will bring in consultants to help us create a longterm management plan that will create permanent change,” says Michael Sexauer, director of marketing and membership for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.
The first thing the plan needs to address is educating the public about runoff from the hillsides. “One of our biggest challenges is education of the residents who surround Schenley Park, and pressing on them the importance of being aware of how their lifestyle choices impact Panther Hollow watershed,” says Sexauer.
Another considerable challenge, which the plan will address, is the replacement of harmful invasive species with plants that will bring stability to Panther Hollow’s ecosystem. Additionally, the grant will allow the Parks Conservancy to continue the work they’ve been doing for years, such as installing catch basins and removing debris.
On September 15, the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy will present “What’s in the Panther Hollow?”, a public meeting to address the problems and solutions. Parks Conservancy staff will provide an overview of the Panther Hollow issues, and guest speaker Michele Adams, principal engineer and founder of Meliora Design, will lecture on the importance of sustainable resources engineering and environmentally sensitive site design.
The event is free, and will be located in Botany Hall, adjacent to Phipps Conservatory. Seating is limited, and attendees should RSVP by September 13 through email, or by calling 412-682-7275.
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Source: Michael Sexauer, director of marketing and membership for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy
Writer: John Farley -
Fire Engine House in North Point Breeze Up for Sale
Offers due Oct. 22; tour set ThursdayMonday, September 06, 2010By Joe Smydo, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Engine No. 16 firehouse in North Point Breeze is up for sale. Proposals for use of the space are due Oct. 22 and guidelines are posted for would-be purchasers. Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette
The fire trucks and alarm bells may be long gone, but city officials believe Engine House No. 16 still has a dynamic role to play in the East End.
Officials said they’d like to sell the building and have posted guidelines for would-be purchasers. The request for proposals is on www.buyintheburgh.com, a year-old database of properties for sale by the city and Urban Redevelopment Authority.
The two-story, red-brick building is at Penn and North Lang avenues in North Point Breeze. Built in the early 1900s, it has 6,500 square feet of space and an appraised value of $90,000. Other features are two drive-in bays, 16-foot ceilings and a full basement.
The engine house’s name still adorns the front of the structure.
“It’s a gorgeous building,” said URA executive director Rob Stephany.
The building was used for police training after the fire department left.
The city stopped using the building as a fire station in the late 1980s or early 1990s, but it’s still used to provide classroom training to firefighters. Overall, the URA said, it’s in fair condition.
Mr. Stephany said the building is well suited for an architect’s studio, condominiums or a home-business combination. Claire Hosteny, URA senior real-estate development specialist, said one drawback is a lack of parking space outside.
Proposals are due to the URA by noon Oct. 22. A walk-through is scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday.
No public subsidies are available for renovation. The URA is helping to vet proposals, but the decision to sell rests with City Council and the mayor’s office.
In other cities, old firehouses have been converted into homes and businesses. In March, Chicago officials decided to seek redevelopment proposals for the old Engine Co. 18 firehouse, a two-bay structure built in 1873 on the city’s Near West Side. Officials said they’re interested in a commercial or mixed-use development.
Mr. Stephany said redevelopment of the North Point Breeze building can have a “catalytic impact” on a part of the city poised for progress. He said the development opportunity comes amid a master-planning process for the Homewood-North Point Breeze area.
In highlighting the firehouse development opportunity last week, officials also sought to focus renewed attention on the property website, which lists about 4,300 properties for sale. Properties may be searched by address and neighborhood. The website provides details on each property and has information on the city’s tax-abatement and green-up programs.
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In McKeesport, Marina’s Success Boosts Other Businesses, City’s Hopes
Thursday, September 09, 2010By Candy Woodall, freelancePittsburgh Post-Gazette
The McKees Point Marina is located on Water Street in McKeesport. Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette
Summer may be winding down but Ray Dougherty already is preparing for next season at McKees Point Marina along the Youghiogheny River.
The 200 docks are full to capacity, and the waiting list is growing, a stark difference from the 60 spots that were filled when Mr. Dougherty started as manager of the marina in McKeesport four years ago.
In addition to the solar, steel building he plans to have constructed along Water Street to house boats during the off-season using a $150,000 Growing Greener grant, growth at the marina also has led to a new boat dealer opening in McKeesport and increased revenues at McKees Cafe.
He attributes the surge at the marina to reducing rates and adding entertainment.
The marina hosts free, live entertainment every weekend.
Rates were $1,080 annually for either a 30- or 20-foot dock in 2006. Now, they are $900 per year for a 30-foot dock and $580 per year for a 20-foot dock.
Mr. Dougherty said he puts the docks in the water for the boating season to begin April 15 and takes the docks out when the season ends Oct. 15. The marina also docks 18 jet skis and keeps 11 spots open for transient boaters who can anchor at the space for $20 to $25 per day.
“We keep those prices low to encourage people to come visit McKeesport,” he said.
The marina is now self-sustaining — purchased with a $1.8 million Housing and Urban Development Authority loan in 1998 — and costs about $100,000 a year to operate, he said.
By the beginning of next season, he wants to use marina revenues to build a small park for children near the marina for the families who dock there.
He attributes the surge in family boaters to a slow economy and the other offerings of McKeesport’s waterfront — not the least of which is its use as a trail head to the Great Allegheny Passage, Steel Valley Trail and Youghiogheny River Trail.
The combination of water traffic, foot traffic and boat traffic has boosted sales by 50 percent at McKees Cafe along Water Street, which Mr. Dougherty also manages.
His cafe, which makes its own homemade bread and sells $5 lunches, has a nautical theme, including a large mural of sea life on the walls. Another wall is signed by boaters, bikers and hikers who have visited the trails from seven countries and all but five states.
“We see a lot of bikers in the morning and boaters in the evening,” he said.
Boaters who buy a yearly lease at the marina also have a membership to the McKees Cafe Clubhouse, where they can host birthday parties, graduation parties or other events for free.
Mr. Dougherty said most members are from the Mon Valley or Westmoreland County, including the communities of McKeesport, North Huntingdon and Greensburg.
The boating activity is why Pittsburgh Boat Sales opened on Water Street this summer and celebrated a grand opening a few weeks ago.
“The McKees Point Marina has a central location to Pittsburgh, and we wanted to jump into the Pittsburgh market,” said Dino Ellena, service manager.
“We noticed a growth in boating. Families seem to be forgoing a $7,000 vacation in favor of buying a boat and having many summers of vacation.
“It’s another way to help the economy here instead of going somewhere else and spending money. More people are keeping the money local.”
And that’s great news, said Dennis Pittman, McKeesport city administrator.
He hopes the city’s natural resources — as a confluence of the Youghiogheny and Monongahela rivers — will create other economic opportunities for the city.
He’s making plans to build a fishing pier, establish a rowing club, partner with Penn State Greater Allegheny to construct a fish hatchery and develop the waterfront with small businesses.
Seeking Hope VI grant money, he hopes to use those public funds to build a $100,000 fishing pier at 13th Street along the Youghiogheny River next year.
“I may be dreaming a little because we’re rich in ideas and poor in dollars,” Mr. Pittman said. “But there’s no doubt we need to take advantage of what we have.”
When the Army Corps of Engineers is finished with its work on the Braddock Dam and eliminates the Elizabeth Dam, McKeesport will have a 20-mile pool of free-flowing water to use, doubling the 10-mile pool it has now.
Those changes also will cause the Youghiogheny to rise about 5 feet, according to Mr. Pittman, making boating on that river a more pleasurable experience.
Mr. Pittman also wants to see some rowing boats in the water within the next three years.
He said the city has the space and desire for a rowing club that could host high schools, colleges and junior programs.
He’s partnering with executives at Three Rivers Rowing to establish a program — possibly as a third site for the rowing club, which already operates facilities at Washington’s Landing and in Millvale.
Mr. Pittman would like to see an indoor facility with a glass front built along the water in an old pipe yard. It could include a gym, boat storage and restaurant. He’s seeking public funds, philanthropic support and partnerships with the private sector. He declined to give specific figures while costs are being analyzed and collaborations are forming.
He hopes a partnership with Penn State Greater Allegheny will lead to the creation of a fish hatchery at an old Westmoreland County water plant near 15th Street through the school’s agriculture program.
“We’ve talked to school officials there about raising the fish and stocking our local streams,” he said. “It’s a teaching and vocational opportunity.”
Mr. Pittman said he is talking to John Hohman, plant manager, to work out a ground lease. It also may be donated to Penn State Greater Allegheny or the city, he said.
“The elements are in place, but there’s still some work to be done,” he said.
The economic impact of developing a waterfront and using rivers can be huge, according to Rick Brown, executive director of Three Rivers Rowing.
It takes some work and money, but not necessarily much money, he said. Facilities range in costs, and sometimes boathouses start out with simple materials such as chain-link fencing, he said.
Eight high schools, three colleges and a junior team representing 20 local high schools compete through Three Rivers Rowing. It has 400 adult members, 100 youth members and about 3,000 total participants a year.
Mr. Brown is pleased that another local municipality wants to start a rowing program.
“I think more rowing in the area would help all of us. We’ll be an area better served,” he said.
And McKeesport would have more to offer, Mr. Pittman said.
“We want people to see us as a destination point,” he said. “We just have a lot more potential than what’s been tapped.”
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McKees Rocks’ Miles Bryan School May Become Condos
Thursday, September 09, 2010By Brian David, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteThe Miles Bryan School building is beautiful in a way modern schools seldom are, with a Gothic flavor and spires and gargoyles carved into its stone.
It’s also in a beautiful spot, on six wooded acres atop a hill jutting up in the midst of McKees Rocks.
The 83-year-old former school has a spectacular view, with the Pittsburgh skyline floating above the treetops to the east and an overview of the town’s rolling hills.
And it boasts a unique bit of landscaping with its terraced levels and sweeping, 102-step grand staircase winding down the hill to Chartiers Avenue.
That’s the good. The bad is that Miles Bryan, vacant since 1997, has been targeted by vagrants and vandals and is marked by graffiti and broken glass.
It is in a struggling community where redevelopment is too often an underfunded dream. And with no one to do official maintenance, a handful of volunteers faces the task of keeping weeds and brush at bay on the grounds.
“I get poison ivy five times a summer up there,” said Taris Vrcek, director of the McKees Rocks Development Corp. and the chief maintenance volunteer.
Mr. Vrcek, however, hopes to put the Calamine lotion away for good in a few years. The CDC, which has an option on the property, is marketing it to developers, touting it as a site for 20 to 30 luxury loft condominiums.
“We see Miles Bryan as a viable and marketable property,” he said Tuesday. “We’re seeking a developer with the imagination to share our vision of what is possible.”
As part of that mission, the CDC on Friday hosted the second annual “Run Your Rox Off” 5K run/walk, which started and finished at Miles Bryan and included a community picnic and free concert.
Mr. Vrcek said the event raised roughly $2,000 for the CDC, but more importantly, it attracted between 300 and 400 to the site, including a high percentage of out-of-town runners.
“The fundraising is definitely secondary to raising awareness,” he said.
Miles Bryan was built in 1927 on an outcropping known as O’Donovan’s Hill, part of the landholdings of telegraph-operator-turned-merchant-banker Michael C. O’Donovan. It was named for a banker and politician who was also a scion of the family that built the Frank Bryan Inc. concrete company.
The building served as the high school for McKees Rocks children until 1966, when McKees Rocks and Stowe merged to form the Sto-Rox School District, then served as Sto-Rox Middle School for another 31 years.
Facing a steep renovation bill, the school district closed it in 1997 and sold it to a developer in 2001. The CDC holds an option with that developer.
Mr. Vrcek said he spent one year there, as a seventh-grader in 1981-82, but has “more memories from there than from anywhere else.”
He remembered the separate rooms for art, wood shop and music, the gym and auditorium and especially the trees.
“It was so easy to focus there; you had trees outside your window and not much else,” he said. “You felt removed from the world up there.”
He also remembered playing on the grounds before and after school, and the long walk up the hill from Chartiers Avenue, where children got off the buses. “It immediately promoted good health, making all the kids walk up that hill,” he said.
Mr. Vrcek said the classrooms are between 1,000 and 2,000 square feet with high ceilings and large windows and would convert easily to apartments. He said that eight of them would most likely boast the skyline view.
The gymnasium, he said, could be used for either sheltered parking or as a fitness center, and the auditorium could get windows and skylights and serve as an atrium-style gathering place or even as an indoor greenhouse/garden.
Mr. Vrcek also said the CDC is interested in keeping the grounds open to the public, while balancing that interest with the privacy and safety concerns of prospective owners.
Duquesne Light has been an active donor to CDC efforts, he said, and he is looking to the utility company’s Power to Light program to get some lighting on the grounds.
Mr. Vrcek said that Duquesne Light also is planning to do cleanup work in Third Street Park, which adjoins the Miles Bryan grounds, as a Day of Caring Project on Tuesday. The park has been closed since the mid-90s, and the CDC is hoping to find funding for new equipment and safety measures to get it open again.
“Talking to young people around here, I know that kids desperately want some decent park space, some decent green space,” he said.
Mr. Vrcek said the hope is to have a developer on board for the Miles Bryan project within 12 months. He is looking at a five-year time frame to have lofts on the market.