Category Archive: Neighborhood Development
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St. Louis company interested in Hill District
Monday, January 28, 2008 – 2:14 PM EST
Pittsburgh Business TimesA St. Louis-based grocery operator is interested in opening a store in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, a community group said Monday.
The Landmarks Community Capital Corp. said it will introduce the grocery operator during a breakfast meeting Tuesday at Station Square.
According to a news release from Landmarks Community Capital, the grocery operator, which it did not identify, has 1,200 stores in 39 states.
St. Louis-based Save-A-Lot, a wholly owned subsidiary of SuperValu, meets that criteria, according to a company Web site. Save-A-Lot stores are commonly 15,000-square-foot sites. Founded in 1977, Save-A-Lot is the 13th-largest retail chain in the United States.
A grocery has been a demand of Hill District leaders in their talks with the city, Allegheny County and the Pittsburgh Penguins on redevelopment of the area connected to construction of a new arena.
Landmarks Community Capital was formed three months ago, according to the news release, “with a mission that focuses on community revitalization and economic development in urban neighborhoods.”
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St. Louis-based grocer headed to Hill District
Monday, January 28, 2008
By Mark Belko,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteA local group supported by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation says it has a St. Louis-based grocer interested in locating in the Hill District.
The Landmarks Community Capital Corp. plans to introduce the potential operator during a breakfast tomorrow at the Grand Concourse at Station Square. Howard B. Slaughter Jr., Landmarks chief executive officer, would not identify the grocer today. It is believed to be Save-A-Lot, which is based in St. Louis and has more than 1,200 stores in 39 states.
Mr. Slaughter said Landmarks Community has been working for months to try to interest a grocery operator in the Hill. He said the search is independent of the community benefits agreement negotiations between Hill leaders and the city, Allegheny County, and the Penguins. One of the major demands of the One Hill Community Benefits Agreement Coalition and other Hill leaders in those talks is a grocery store for the neighborhood as part of the replacement of Mellon Arena.
“We independently looked for a grocer because we know the community has a need and we want to provide options to support that need,” Mr. Slaughter said.
Hill District representatives and city, county and Penguins officials have been invited to tomorrow’s breakfast. Save-A-Lot has looked at the Hill in the past and decided against putting a store there in 2004.
More details in tomorrow’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
First published on January 28, 2008 at 1:48 pm
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Landmarks Community Capital Announces National Grocery Operator Interested in Locating in the Hill District
On January 29th at 8:30 a.m., Dr. Howard B. Slaughter, Jr., Chief Executive Officer of Landmarks Community Capital Corporation (“LCCC”) will host an industry breakfast at the Grand Concourse Restaurant in Station Square to introduce a superior grocery operator who has an interest in opening a grocery store in the Hill District.
Six representatives from the St. Louis-based company will present their ideas and analysis as to why its store would work in the Hill District and benefit the community. At 9:00 a.m., the representatives will answer questions and take comments.
LCCC was formed just three months ago with a mission that focuses on community revitalization and economic development in urban neighborhoods.
Dr. Howard B. Slaughter, Jr. said, “our goal from the inception of establishing LCCC was to independently engage a viable, national grocery operator interested in locating in the Hill District that has quality food products, is committed to urban communities with a sensitivity to urban design, open to minority ownership possibilities, and is a willing partner.”
Representatives of the grocery operator have completed a site visit of the Hill District and other important analysis to assess whether its store could work there. The grocery operator offers USDA inspected fresh meats, fruits, vegetables, dairy items, bakery goods and other assorted grocery and household items.
The grocery operator hires from within the community, provides full-time employment opportunities with benefits, and is willing to participate in local community events. The store also has experience in working in urban neighborhoods.
The chain has over 1,200 stores in 39 states and attracts over four million shoppers per week. This grocery operator is the nation’s fifth largest grocery chain under a single banner, and favorably boasts of its minority-owned stores with 44% of United States households in their target market.
Councilwoman Tonya Payne said, “it is incumbent upon me, on behalf of the residents of the Hill District, to consider any and all serious opportunities which could lead to a quality grocer locating in the Hill District; something that is direly needed. The Hill District has the desire and capacity to support a grocery store. Landmarks Community Capital Corporation should be commended for leading the effort to find a national grocer interested in our community, and we will introduce the grocer at the press conference on Tuesday after a question and answers session.”
Representatives of the community, city and county public officials, and the Pittsburgh Penguins have been invited to attend the breakfast.
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Union Trust sale nears completion
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, January 26, 2008An investment group led by executives of the Mika Realty Group in Los Angeles is expected to complete the purchase of the historic Union Trust Building next week.
“Things have gone smoothly, and there have been no snags,” said Jeffrey Ackerman, commercial real estate broker with CB Richard Ellis/Pittsburgh, who has been marketing the 11-story, 800,000-square-foot structure on Grant Street since last year.The Tribune-Review reported in November that the building was under purchase agreement to the group that includes Michael Kamen, founder of privately held Mika, and a business associate, Gerson Fox, also of Los Angeles.
A purchase price has not been disclosed, but the building is assessed at $30.75 million, according to Allegheny County records.
Ackerman is working on behalf of the building’s owner, Teal Rock 501 Grant Street LP, a partnership owned by Philadelphia-based Cigna Corp.
“We look at the Union Trust Building as a classic building that can’t be duplicated,” Rick Barreca, CEO of Mika Realty, told the Tribune-Review in November. Barreca also one of the investors in the deal.A list of developers carried by a California business publication showed Mika as the 13th-largest developer in the Los Angeles area, with some 5.9 million square feet in commercial real estate developed.
“The buyers have hired an architectural firm to help design improvements for the building,” Ackerman said. The group has said it wants to upgrade the building without disturbing its historic character.
The building, which has been known as Two Mellon Bank Center, is widely regarded as one of the city’s most architecturally significant landmark buildings. It was designed in Flemish Gothic style by noted Pittsburgh architect F.J. Osterling and built in 1916 for industrialist Henry Clay Frick.
It has been nearly empty since Mellon Financial Corp. — now Bank of New York Mellon Corp. — moved its personnel out of the structure in May 2006.
A small number of mostly retail tenants remain on the first level, the largest being Lorrimer’s clothing store.
CB Richard Ellis will handle management of the building once the sale completed, Ackerman said.
Two of its brokers, Hugh “Herky” Pollock and Jeremy Kronman, already have been working on behalf of the buyers to pitch space there to potential tenants for first floor retail and the upper floor office space, Ackerman said.
“A number of large office users have looked at the building, and they also have some very exciting prospects for the retail,” said Ackerman, without disclosing names of companies involved.
“The office market really is very active right now,” said Kronman. He’s shown the building to numerous prospective tenants, in fact, “enough to fill up four times the available space,” he said.
“We have people looking for 50,000- to 200,000-square-foot blocks, and we haven’t really started our leasing campaign,” he said.
The national credit crunch that has had a major impact on the U.S. residential market hasn’t caused any problems with the Union Trust building deal, Ackerman said.
“The buyer has secured lender financing,” he said.
Securing financing was said to be a problem with a previous potential buyer, a New York investment group that included Houlihan-Parnes/iCap Realty Advisors of White Plains and J.J. Operating Corp. of New York City.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
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Bringing East Liberty back to life
By David M. Brown
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, January 25, 2008With its ornate, arched entryway on Whitfield Street, the century-old former YMCA building in East Liberty evokes memories of when the neighborhood was a bustling retail district, second only to Downtown.
Older residents recall streets lined with restaurants, jewelry and furniture stores, movie theaters, supermarkets and a department store. That was before the neighborhood deteriorated as urban redevelopment backfired, analysts say, and use of the YMCA dwindled.
But on Thursday, officials heralded the five-story brick building as the focal point for revitalizing the business district in a neighborhood that has shown signs of rebirth.
The building will be converted into 35 condominiums on the upper floors and retail space on the first floor. A nonprofit corporation formed last year by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation gave the project an $885,000 loan.
“This is the first project really in the core of East Liberty that’s really going to bring life back to the neighborhood,” Maelene Myers, executive director of the East Liberty Development Corp., said at a news conference. “I cannot say enough about partnership.”
The below-market-rate loan — the first announced by the new Landmarks Community Capital Corp.’s Urban Economic Loan Fund — also is helping the development corporation rehabilitate two historically significant homes on Rippey Street. The loan has been combined with a $250,000 grant from the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority.“What’s happening with the ‘Y’ is a major piece of restoring old, viable East Liberty,” said Arthur P. Ziegler, president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
State Rep. Joe Preston, 60, of East Liberty noted that he and other public officials attending yesterday’s news conference played basketball at the YMCA when they were growing up. The YMCA was closed more than a decade ago, and the building is now vacant.
“It’s a good thing to see it coming back as something positive,” Preston said.
Neighborhood advocates say the first seed for the neighborhood’s rebirth was planted when the Home Depot opened on Penn Circle North in 2000.
Two years later, organic grocer Whole Foods made a successful debut on the other side of the circle at Centre Avenue. The Mosites Co.’s EastSide project brought in a Walgreens Drug Store, Starbucks coffee shop, and other retail outlets.
“We’ve seen a lot of success on the outskirts, but now we are in downtown East Liberty,” said Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.
Mark Meiser of Meiz Development Co., the Denver-based developer on the $7 million conversion of the YMCA building, said East Liberty is prime for developments such as the condominiums.
“The building is fabulous. I love the architecture. I love the setting,” Meiser said. “First and foremost, the timing is right for East Liberty. Whole Foods is nationally known as one of the best in the country. If they are here and prospering, that tells me the foundation is here.”
City Councilman Ricky Burgess, whose district includes East Liberty, said the project is important to adjacent neighborhoods.
“East Liberty has to be a magnet,” Burgess said. “It has to be bustling with development, with homeowners and shops. We hope to take this development further up and redevelop Brushton, Point Breeze, Homewood, the whole 9th Council District.”
David M. Brown can be reached at dbrown@tribweb.com or 412-380-5614.
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East Liberty Development Thriving; Hill District Falls Behind
POSTED: 1:20 pm EST January 24, 2008
UPDATED: 6:01 pm EST January 24, 2008WTAE TV: http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/
PITTSBURGH — The tale of two Pittsburgh neighborhoods, both with harsh histories, is stirring up some controversy around the area.
East Liberty is in a renewal while many say the Hill District is being left behind.
The latest East Liberty development, announced on Thursday, will use a mixture of private investment loans and tax money.
Residents in the Hill District are still fighting for the city to set up a fund for development.
So, why does it work in one neighborhood and not the other?
The old downtown YMCA building in East Liberty hasn’t been used in years. Soon, it’s going to be turned into 35 brand new lofts thanks to a developer who hopes to breathe new life into the historic building.
According to developer Mark Meiser, the lofts will range upward of $250,000.
“First-time homebuyers, I think, is probably the biggest target market,” said Meiser. “Single women, I think, in particular with the medical market that is here in Pittsburgh.”
The project also includes renovating dilapidated duplexes on Rippey Street into eight condos in the $150,000 price range.
“Part of this plan is to eliminate that horrendous circle and restore the traditional historic street grid pattern with homes, and those homes will be explicitly affordable to a single moms with four or five kids,” said state Sen. Jim Ferlo.
“This project will rehabilitate and preserve several significant buildings in East Liberty while addressing the community’s needs for decent and affordable housing and encourage development in a community that’s fallen on hard times,” said Rep. Mike Doyle.
In the Hill District though, the One Hill Coalition is pushing the city for money. It wants the renewal that’s happening in East Liberty to happen in the Hill, too, but that effort has hit struggle after struggle.
WTAE Channel 4 Action News reporter Bob Mayo asked Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to explain what’s the difference between East Liberty compared to the community-controlled funding Hill District activists are seeking.
“Well, this is different in that, you know, this is project-specific, and we’ve been very clear with the folks in the Hill District: project-specific projects are things we’re more than willing to fund,” said Ravenstahl.
Carl Redwood, of the One Hill Coalition, said he believes the scope of the Penguins new arena deal should set the stage for something different.“There are a number of project-specific proposals that are taking place right now in the Hill District that the city is supporting,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that there was an additional fund because of the new arena that was created, that could be under more community control.”
“I think we can be creative and find ways to fund projects in the Hill District just like we found ways to fund a project like this one,” said Ravenstahl. “And so I think that discussion has evolved and has moved to a good point.”
But Redwood said the Hill District community feels it knows best how to move forward with its neighborhood’s development.
“They gave the Penguins full control of all the parking revenue on the Urban Redevelopment Authority controlled parking spaces. They didn’t ask them for project specific things. The revenue goes to the Penguins. That’s not project specific. They changed the rules for the Penguins, but they won’t change them for the community.”
Story courtesy of WTAE TV: http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/
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Allegheny County purchase of liens opens doors to development
By Justin Vellucci
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, January 24, 2008Doug Van Haitsma looks at a three-story apartment building in Swissvale and sees the heart of a revitalized neighborhood.
Now that Allegheny County has bought back the lien — a legal claim for unpaid taxes — on the Monongahela Avenue property, Van Haitsma said his plan to convert it and 50 nearby parcels into a Mon Valley gateway is a step closer to reality.
“It’s a pocket within Swissvale that has really fallen on hard times,” said Van Haitsma, real estate director for the Mon Valley Initiative, a development group. “Having those liens in friendly hands … is a huge advantage.”
The county redevelopment authority agreed Wednesday to spend $1.625 million to buy back liens on 19,013 properties it sold a decade ago to GLS Capital Inc. The purchase includes vacant homes, commercial buildings and undeveloped lots in 129 municipalities — every town in the county except Pennsbury Village.
Officials hope the purchase spurs a development boom.
“We felt this was a pretty good deal,” said Dennis Davin, director of the county’s economic development office. “This gives us control of what happens at these properties.”The purchase also ends a 2007 lawsuit in which GLS accused the county of selling it “defective liens,” such as ones for sites the government planned to acquire through eminent domain, county solicitor Mike Wojcik said. The Virginia-based company sought more than $1.85 million in damages, court records show.
“It became cumbersome having to deal with them,” Wojcik said. “We can get GLS out of the picture now.”
GLS could not be reached for comment.
Attorney E.J. Strassburger, who helped file the lawsuit, forwarded questions to an attorney who didn’t return calls. Strassburger’s firm also represents the Tribune-Review.
The purchase represents just part of the 77,000 delinquent accounts GLS bought for nearly $50 million in the mid-1990s.
About one in every four of the purchased properties — roughly 4,500 — are in Pittsburgh. The city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority is interested in acquiring some liens in hopes of drawing developers to those properties, many of which are vacant, Davin said.
The head of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which is restoring four Wilkinsburg homes once hit with tax liens, lauded the move.
“It sounds good to us because it (puts) the property back into the control of the county,” said foundation president Arthur Ziegler. “It would make renewal of them much easier.”
Patrick Shattuck, a ninth-generation Vermont native who moved to Wilkinsburg a year ago, agreed. He wants to turn vacant lots whose liens were bought by the county into parking and open space near his 108-year-old Edwardian home.
“The goal is to get the properties back into the hands of folks that are going to use them … and make these communities vibrant again,” Shattuck said.
The move to buy previously sold liens is not new. In 2006, Pittsburgh officials teamed with the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority and Pittsburgh Public Schools to buy liens on more than 11,000 properties for $6.5 million. The city sold about 14,000 liens from 1996 to 1999 for $64 million.
Justin Vellucci can be reached at jvellucci@tribweb.com or 412-320-7847
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Landmarks Community Capital Corporation and URA Invest $1,135,000 in East Liberty
PHLF News
January 23, 2008On January 24th at 10:00 a.m., United States Representative Mike Doyle, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, State Senator Jim Ferlo, State Representative Joe Preston, Mark Meiser from the Denver-based MEIZ Development Company, LLC (MEIZ) and the community will meet at the YMCA Building, 120 Whitfield Street, to celebrate a $1,135,000 investment in East Liberty made by Landmarks Community Capital Corporation (LCCC) and the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) to East Liberty Development Incorporated (ELDI).
LCCC is a newly created non-profit subsidiary of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (PHLF) with a mission to provide investment capital, development expertise and pre- and post-technical assistance to low- and moderate-income communities during the early stages of development. Within eight weeks of its inception, LCCC made its first loan from its Urban Economic Loan Fund for $885,000 to ELDI. Dr. Howard B. Slaughter, Jr., Chief Executive Officer of LCCC, stated “this loan represents the largest single loan ever made by PHLF or LCCC to a community-based organization and follows our mission of being a first-in, first-out financing organization for holistic community revitalization in urban cores throughout the region.”
ELDI will use the funds to rehabilitate two historically significant, but dilapidated Queen Anne style homes (c. 1892) located at 5809-15 Rippey Street and to acquire and rehabilitate the YMCA building (c. 1908) located in downtown East Liberty. The Rippey
Street houses will be converted into eight market-rate condominiums to satisfy the demand for affordable housing in East Liberty.
ELDI has partnered with MEIZ to convert the YMCA building into market-rate condominiums with retail space on the first floor. Mark Meiser, Principal of MEIZ, said, the YMCA “is a historic building perfectly positioned for cutting-edge, mixed-use development in East Liberty. MEIZ thrives on the challenges of reclaiming old buildings that are significant to a neighborhood, but need to be updated to meet today’s vibrant lifestyle. It’s also great to work in cities where organizations like LCCC and the URA support urban core development, a needed component for regenerative revitalization.” “A basic tenant of sustainability is appreciating the built environment,” said Senator Jim Ferlo. “ELDI and MEIZ are to be commended for thinking creatively about how to preserve and protect an historically notable building with an adaptive reuse that addresses the critical need for housing in a resurgent East Liberty core.”
A portion of LCCC’s loan was used to acquire the YMCA property, and the URA also committed $250,000 to the project. Maelene Myers, Executive Director of ELDI said, “These will be the first market-rate condominiums in our downtown core and will be a key part of the redevelopment of East Liberty’s town square. ELDI is grateful to LCCC and the URA for their support.”
Both the Rippey Street and YMCA rehabilitations are important to the revitalization of East Liberty as a whole. “The revitalization of East Liberty will have a beneficial effect on the region, particularly with the synergistic approach to collaborative revitalization that ELDI uses, which I believe is an essential component for effective urban neighborhood revival,” stated Congressman Doyle.
“By replacing blight with new development and jobs, ELDI is leading the transformation of East Liberty,” Mayor Luke Ravensthal said.Representative Joe Preston stated, “True urban revitalization begins with the integration of mixed-income families, thriving businesses and committed residents, which are all part of the re-birth of East Liberty and is sure to occur with the dedication of ELDI and the commitment and support of LCCC and the URA.”