Category Archive: Neighborhood Development
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Schenley High School shuttering on the table again
By Bill Zlatos
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, November 2, 2007Despite the asbestos in the nearly century-old Schenley High School, real estate officials see a market for it as a place to live or work.
“It’s prominent. It’s handsome, and it’s close to institutions that have a lot of demand. It has market attributes that a lot of other schools don’t have,” said David Matter, president of the Downtown-based Oxford Development Co.
Matter made his comment Thursday, a day after city schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt proposed for the second time in two years that the school be closed.
Roosevelt cited the $64.3 million cost of removing the asbestos and making mechanical improvements as reasons for closing the school in June. Public hearings will be conducted Nov. 13 and 27, and the school board is scheduled to vote on the proposal in February.
Matter said he talked with Roosevelt a few weeks ago about the marketability of Schenley. Perhaps the school’s greatest asset is its location in Oakland near the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and nearby universities.
“There are institutions that are likely to develop demand for the most appropriate use, which I think is multifamily housing,” Matter said.
Pitt spokesman John Fedele declined to comment on the university’s possible interest in buying the 91-year-old building.
Jason Stewart, vice president of Grubb & Ellis, a Downtown-based commercial real estate services firm, said the building is suitable for condos and offices. Like Matter, he likes Schenley’s location.
“On the surface, the Oakland area is ground zero for our region’s growth,” Stewart said.
Jasmine Davis, 15, of the North Side is a cheerleader and a junior at Schenley. When she learned yesterday morning of the proposed closing, she was heartbroken.
“I don’t want it to close,” Davis said. “I want to graduate from Schenley.”
Supporters of Schenley say they will battle attempts to put it on the market.
“We’re fighting it, but we’re trying to work with the school district,” said Jet Lafean, 56, of Schenley Farms, a member of Save Schenley, a group that opposed the earlier attempt to shut down the school.
He said the group wants to tour the building and review the district’s report on how much the renovation would cost.
“We think the figure’s about half that from what we heard a year ago,” Lafean said.
Roosevelt, however, stands by the estimate.
“You can do a less-expensive remediation that could come around $50 million,” he said. “But we believe to save the building and do it right, the best estimate is $64 million.
Stewart considers Schenley’s historic status — it’s listed on the National Registry of Historic Places — as an asset, too. He cited the conversion of the Heinz factory on the North Shore into Heinz Lofts and the ongoing renovation of the former Nabisco Bakery in East Liberty into Bakery Square, an office and retail development.
Matter said a buyer could take advantage of tax credits available for renovating historic buildings.
Arthur Ziegler, president of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation at Station Square, said any buyer must have the plans approved by the state historic preservation officer.
Given the district’s estimate for fixing the building, Ziegler said he was not surprised the administration wants to sell it.
“But it certainly is a hallmark school building that many people know and respect,” he said. “So we want to see the building retained, if not by the school board, by a serious developer.”
Neither the real estate officials nor Roosevelt would estimate what the building could fetch on the market.
“I think there will be a purchaser for Schenley,” Roosevelt said. “I think it will be a very modest price.”
Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or 412-320-7828.
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Hearing Before the Council of the City of Pittsburgh on the Bakery Square Tax Increment Financing Plan – Nabisco Property
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF
ANNE E. NELSON, ESQ.
DIRECTOR OF LEGAL AFFAIRS
PITTSBURGH HISTORY & LANDMARKS FOUNDATION
BEFORE THE PITTSBURGH CITY COUNCIL
PUBLIC HEARING ON THE BAKERY SQUARE TAX INCREMENT FINANCING PLAN – NABISCO PROPERTY
OCTOBER 23, 2007
On behalf of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (“Landmarks”) and our president, Arthur Ziegler, I thank you, members of the Council, for the opportunity to discuss the Bakery Square Tax Increment Financing Plan.
From a historic preservation standpoint, Landmarks appreciated the opportunity to meet with the project developers from the onset and to work with them to put together a preservation plan for the buildings that, at the same time, respected the developer’s functional needs. Landmarks is very pleased that the developer has followed through consistently with the preservation plan and is considering the donation of a historic preservation easement on the buildings.
The Bakery Square development not only serves historic preservation interests, but will provide a major capital infusion at a strategic city block that will affect the surrounding neighborhoods of East Liberty, Point Breeze, and Homewood.
Therefore, Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation supports the Bakery Square Tax Increment Financing Plan.
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Vandergrift makes a comeback
By Kate Luce Angell
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteLike many once-thriving Pennsylvania steel towns, Vandergrift, about 30 miles northeast of Pittsburgh on the Kiskiminetas River, is pretty quiet nowadays.
Last Saturday, it was the occasional car that passed through the business district, where several storefronts sat vacant. Under the shade of the century-old plane trees, the broad porches of the Victorian houses were empty.
But there were signs of life. A group at the Presbyterian Church was preparing a spaghetti dinner. The Vandergrift Historical Society was open to visitors.
And nearly 50 people were walking the streets for the Pittsburgh History and Landmark Foundation’s tour of the town once known as “the workingman’s paradise” that is now struggling to preserve a rich heritage and make a fresh start.
Built in 1895 as the new home of the Apollo Iron and Steel Co., Vandergrift once had a population of 10,000 and the largest rolled steel mill in the world, employing more than 5,000 workers. Today the mill, now owned by Allegheny Ludlum, employs 265, and the town’s population is around 5,000.
But while Vandergrift’s economic woes are common, the town, as the foundation’s tour revealed, is anything but.
George McMurtry, the owner of Apollo Iron and Steel, founded Vandergrift in the belief that workers would be more productive living in pleasant surroundings, with modern conveniences. He hired the firm of Frederick Olmsted, the designer of New York’s Central Park, to plan a worker-owned industrial community that would be “the best of the best,” in Mr. McMurtry’s words.
Mr. Olmsted’s firm produced a town that even today preserves a parklike atmosphere. With no corners, wide boulevards lined with trees curve into a business district accented by rounded brick facades.
For his part, Mr. McMurtry sold lots only to businesses and his own workers and offered free land, matching construction funds and a free organ to churches. He also donated land and funds for the Casino Theater, schools, the library and many other public projects.
Like other industrialists of his age, Mr. McMurtry’s philanthropic impulses went along with a strong profit motive: His lots for homes were expensive, and he owned the bank that offered the mortgages. One of the reasons he founded Vandergrift was to keep his mill nonunion, and he succeeded until the 1930s.
But Vandergrift became famous as a town where workers and their families could live the American dream, and the streets, lined with yellow brick, must have seemed paved with gold to some of the thousands of immigrant families who made their homes in the growing community.
As Vandergrift historian and tour leader Ken Blose pointed out, much of that brick now lies buried under crumbling asphalt. But a partnership of nonprofit groups is trying, with the help of local residents and business owners, to make Vandergrift golden again.
The Vandergrift Improvement Program, located in a small storefront on downtown Grant Street, is the local level of the national Main Street program, which works to revitalize traditional business districts by organizing local efforts, promotion of local businesses and attractions and economic restructuring.
Pittsburgh History and Landmark Foundation serves as VIP’s area coordinator. The program’s board includes local business owners and Vandergrift’s mayor, Lou Purificato.
Shaun Yurcaba, the local Main Street coordinator, said that even though VIP organized in January 2004, the groundwork laid by the program is just beginning to pay off.
“It takes a while to get started,” she explained. “We’ve been gathering information, coordinating volunteers and groups. We’re just beginning to work on business recruitment and retention.”
Already, VIP has sponsored events to help local businesses compete with “big box” stores and helped to secure funding for the refurbishment of the business district’s store facades, as well as holding community events like a recent Arts Festival.
In February, 200 Westmoreland County students will present their design ideas for turning Vandergrift’s abandoned J.C. Penney building into a new community arts center as part of the PHLF’s annual architectural design challenge. “Revitalization is a marathon,” said Mrs. Yurcaba, “not a race.”
As Mr. Blose pointed out, even before VIP, Vandergrift had residents concerned with preserving its past for a better future. “In the ’80s, they were about ready to tear the Casino Theater down. The roof was leaking, plaster falling off the walls. The Historical Society fought to save it.”
Today the Casino Theater is the oldest operating theater in southwestern Pennsylvania, and the refurbished three-story building, adorned with Greek-style columns, again hosts music and theater performances. It was recently designated the National Museum of Vaudeville in recognition of the venue’s importance during the heyday of vaudeville performance.
As Mr. Blose prepared to lead the Foundation tour group across Columbia Avenue, a group of young girls gathered on a nearby porch, curious about the crowd. “We’re on a tour,” he called out, inviting them to join in and “learn something about the town you live in.”
When the tour group moved on, PHLF executive director Louise Sturgess looked back at the girls and observed that helping a community recognize its own value was a big part of both the Foundation’s and VIP’s mission. “If they realize how special their town is, they’ll fight harder to save it.”
First published on October 18, 2007 at 6:27 am
Kate Luce Angell is a freelance writer. -
Pittsburgh development CEO debuts
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, October 17, 2007On Monday, Howard B. Slaughter Jr. officially started his job as CEO of Landmarks Community Capital Inc., a new nonprofit corporation formed by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
Slaughter didn’t wait to begin his quest to raise the $10 million to $15 million he hopes to secure for the new corporation to invest in community development and revitalization projects in Western Pennsylvania and in the neighboring states of West Virginia and Ohio.
“We’ve already been talking to some companies that have social investment programs,” said Slaughter, whose appointment was announced last month. “We also are going to be talking to some local foundations to discuss our new company and the opportunities we see.”
Slaughter, 49, can draw on his considerable credentials in urban housing and home financing as he pitches funders on behalf of the new corporation.
In essence, he is back home at Pittsburgh History & Landmarks, where he headed neighborhood programs as director of preservation services from 1995 to 1999.
That was before he left to serve an eight-year stint as director of Fannie Mae’s Pittsburgh Community Business Center, which has been a major source of home financing in this region.
Fannie Mae, the nation’s largest home funding company, decided to close the center along with similar offices in more than 40 cities, citing realignment of goals and the need to cut costs. Pittsburgh’s center helped 24,000 families in the region become homeowners at projects that include Summerset at Frick Park, and Bedford Hope VI and the Oak Hill housing complex, both in the Hill District.
Slaughter previously served as vice president of Dollar Bank’s Community Development group.
“Howard brings the vision and the working knowledge for the new nonprofit corporation,” said Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and president of Landmarks Community Capital.
“We think he is just the person to expand the assistance we hope to render to Western Pennsylvania in revitalizing historic rural areas, towns and urban areas, particularly in Pittsburgh,” Ziegler said.
Efforts might include helping the Hill District community fulfill a long-standing need to bring a grocery store to the neighborhood, said Slaughter.
Hill District community leaders want a commitment for a new supermarket to be part of a “community benefits agreement” with the Pittsburgh Penguins in return for their support for the hockey team’s new $290 million arena. Slaughter said he’s with Penguins President David Morehouse to discuss how the corporation’s participation may help make that happen.
Improving neighborhood housing also is a target as is helping preserve some of the historic farms in the region that the South Side-based Landmarks Foundation has identified as worth saving in a recent survey.
“In the first year, we would like to provide funding for at least four of five different projects ranging from $25,000 to $1 million,” Slaughter said. “We have a wide range of funding options because the multiplicity of opportunities for investment are wide.”
The first investments could come by the first quarter of 2008, he said.
The idea of the new corporation is to raise funds through grants, loans and investments. Roles it can play include as developer, co-developer, or a lender to community development corporations and others that undertake such work.
Slaughter uses the accounting term “FIFO” in describing the corporation’s investment strategy. The idea is to be “first in” with its funds to help jump-start projects in early stages, and then be “first out” with those funds when more permanent financing is secured from others to carry development forward.
“We certainly want to focus on urban areas in the Pittsburgh and Allegheny County region,” said Slaughter.
Another target area is likely to be Wilkinsburg, where Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has worked with two $500,000 grants secured from the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Allegheny County Department of Economic Development to acquire and restore four century-old structures for new housing.
“We also would like to do some work on the North Side and where we have several county Main Street programs. We have pilot areas in Tarentum, Swissvale, Elizabeth Township and Stowe,” he said.
Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato is “very excited” about the new corporation and its potential, said spokesman Kevin Evanto.
Slaughter and Ziegler met with Onorato several weeks ago to outline their plans.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907
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Vote set next month on historic status for theater
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Pittsburgh Post GazetteThe city’s Historic Review Commission expects to vote next month on a proposal to designate the Garden Theater an historic landmark. It heard public support for it — with no objections — yesterday.
“It’s a no-brainer,” said Greg Mucha, a member of the Mexican War Streets Society, citing concurrent planning for new housing, a new branch of the Carnegie Library and development proposals in the pipeline for a dozen or so properties that form the Federal Street-North Avenue corridor.
“We would like to see all of North Avenue become a historic district, and this would be an important first step,” said Steve Paul, executive director of Preservation Pittsburgh.
Dan Holland, founder of the Young Preservationists Association, said the Garden was overlooked in his group’s report last year citing 130 properties that should be protected.
The 91-year old structure, one of the last nickelodeon-style theaters in the country, was a porn theater for decades until earlier this year, when the Urban Redevelopment Authority purchased it after a lengthy battle of court appeals.
First published on October 4, 2007 at 12:00 am
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Turtle Creek at odds over future of aging school
By Brian Bowling
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, October 4, 2007The fight over East Junior High School in the Woodland Hills School District stands out from other consolidation battles because the struggle isn’t so much over where children will go to school but what will happen to the school building in Turtle Creek.
The Committee to Save Turtle Creek High School — the name the building once carried — has fought efforts to demolish and replace, or even significantly alter, the building.
Bob Mock, a member of the group, said the building defines Turtle Creek.
“This building is the most important building in our town,” Mock said. “It’s really the only park-like setting we have in our town. The whole town is built around it.”
The group achieved a milestone Aug. 30 when the National Park Service put the building on its National Register of Historic Places. Historic status doesn’t make the building demolition-proof, but limits how the district can use federal money to alter the school.
Linda Cole, a school board member, said East Junior High is deteriorating and the group’s opposition has kept the district from making the building handicapped accessible or otherwise modernizing the school. Getting the building on the national register just made matters worse, she said.
“They basically did this so we would not be able to remodel,” Cole said.
Although the district originally looked at renovation or demolition and replacement, the board voted March 14 to start the process of closing the school and moving students to West Junior High School in Swissvale. The board has scheduled a final vote on closing East Junior High for Oct. 10.
Cole said the board’s options have changed over the years because of declining enrollments. With fewer junior high students, the question isn’t how to replace an aging school but how to best educate the remaining students, she said.
Mock said annual test results show East Junior High is one of the few schools in the district that is meeting federal No Child Left Behind standards.
District spokeswoman Maria McCool said West Junior High School only failed to meet the standards with its special education students, so the two schools are practically even on academic achievement. The district’s analysis of the schools shows that West is in better physical condition, which is why the board is considering closing East.
Brian Bowling can be reached at bbowling@tribweb.com or 412-320-7910.
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Woodland Hills considers merging schools
By Karen Zapf
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, October 4, 2007A committee of Woodland Hills School District residents has recommended a single building for the district’s junior high students, currently being taught in two schools.
Committee members told the school board Wednesday night they recommend using either East or West junior high schools or constructing a new building. East Junior High is in Turtle Creek and West Junior High is in Swissvale.The committee recommended reusing East Junior High if the board decides it should not continue to function as a junior high school. “The consensus is, please don’t tear it down and turn it into a parking lot,” said George Pike, a member of the committee.
The committee’s suggested uses include a magnet school, an administration building, community or senior center or selling the building to a developer.
East Junior High is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The committee did not attach a dollar figure to its recommendations.
The group met four times in September to come up with a plan as to the future for the district’s approximately 700 junior high students. Both schools house the district’s seventh and eighth graders.
The school board is expected to vote on the committee’s recommendation during its 7:30 p.m. meeting on Wednesday.
Pete and Terri Rubash of Churchill, who have three children in the district, wanted a decision immediately.
“Get five votes and just do it,” said Pete Rubash, 48, who was a member of a committee studying the junior high situation two years ago. “You have a roomful of people at East Junior High who don’t know what’s going to go on.”
Rubash said a single junior high school makes sense. Rubash said he believes East Junior High, which is larger and has easier access than the other, is the best choice.
“It would balance the district so there is a (school) presence in the east and in the west,” Rubash said.
Karen Zapf can be reached at kzapf@tribweb.com or 412-380-8522.
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Walk To School: Busing wastes money and encourages sprawl and walking is healthier, anyway
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
By Thomas Hylton
Pittsburgh Post GazetteMass transit has commanded the headlines as Gov. Ed Rendell wrangles with two northwestern Pennsylvania congressmen, U.S. Reps. Phil English and John Peterson, over tolling Interstate-80 to raise more money for transportation, including $300 million more for urban transit.
Rural legislators say their constituents shouldn’t pay tolls to support buses and rail service in southwestern and southeastern Pennsylvania. Unmentioned in the debate is the state’s second- largest public transportation system — school busing.
Pennsylvania school buses travel more than 381 million miles annually at a cost of more than $1 billion. That’s nearly 75 percent of the cost of the state’s urban and rural transit authorities. Although the state provides about half the funding for both systems, school districts are automatically guaranteed a subsidy based on their aid ratio and miles traveled, no further questions asked.
For example, the Blairsville-Saltsburg School District in Indiana County recently announced plans to close its high school in Saltsburg Borough and bus those students an hour away to an enlarged Blairsville High School at an additional cost of $200,000 annually. Thanks to the state subsidy formula, district taxpayers will only pay $62,000 more. The commonwealth will make up the rest.
Generous subsidies for school busing are just one reason the number of students walking to school has plunged from 50 percent in 1970 to less than 15 percent today. In recent decades, hundreds of walkable neighborhood schools have been closed all across Pennsylvania, often to be replaced by sprawling mega-schools on the urban fringe.
These new schools spawn car-dependent development and drain the life from older communities. Statewide, the loss of neighborhood schools has been a major factor in what the Brookings Institution calls the “hollowing out” of Pennsylvania — disinvestment in older urban areas in favor of developing suburbs.
Alarmed by this trend, the state Department of Education and the Pennsylvania School Boards Association recently sponsored a new publication called “Renovate or Replace? The case for restoring and reusing older school buildings.” The booklet features essays by Gov. Rendell’s top cabinet officers, arguing that renovating older schools can save tax dollars, reinforce established communities and still provide facilities that meet 21st-century educational standards.
For example, state Secretary of Transportation Allen D. Biehler says Pennsylvania can’t afford to grow in the sprawling way it has in the past. Already, Mr. Biehler says, his department is short $1.7 billion annually to meet its obligations. “We need to cut down on excess driving by living and working in closer proximity,” he writes. “Walkable neighborhood schools are an important part of sustaining existing resources.”
A third of our children are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight, writes Dr. Calvin B. Johnson, secretary of health. “The fact is children could get most of the daily exercise they need just by walking 15 or 20 minutes to and from school,” he says. “And they would develop a healthy habit to serve them for a lifetime.”
The Mt. Lebanon School District is held up as a model. The district has not built a new school since 1963. Instead, it has renovated its two middle schools and seven elementary schools, most dating to the 1920s and 1930s, and will soon renovate its 1928 high school. The district’s architect estimates the renovated schools cost about 70 percent of the price of new construction, not including land acquisition.
In fact, a review of all school construction projects approved by the Department of Education in the last three years shows that new construction is nearly twice as expensive, per square foot, as renovations and additions, when total project costs are considered.
The No. 1 principle of green building design is to renovate and recycle existing buildings, writes Kathleen McGinty, state secretary of environmental protection. Renovations, she says, make the maximum use of existing materials and reduce demolition debris.
Thanks to its neighborhood school system, Mt. Lebanon enjoys among the lowest transportation costs of any district in the state. But its neighbor, Baldwin-Whitehall School District, has among the highest.
At one time, Baldwin-Whitehall had a substantial number of walkers attending neighborhood elementary schools like Mt. Lebanon’s. In 1984, the district consolidated its schools, going from 15 buildings to five, and began busing all its students. Today, Baldwin-Whitehall spends about the same, per pupil, as Mt. Lebanon, but dedicates nearly six times more money — $900 per pupil — to busing.
Today, Pennsylvania schools will join hundreds across the country holding special programs to celebrate national Walk to School Day. But you can’t walk to schools built in the middle of nowhere.
“Renovate or Replace” is a first step toward persuading school boards to think holistically when making school construction decisions. The role of public schools goes well beyond the education of our youth. Schools affect neighborhood stability, community character, student health, the environment and especially transportation.
If we want to revitalize our towns, protect our countryside and reduce transportation costs, retaining walkable neighborhood schools is a great place to start.
First published on October 3, 2007 at 12:00 am
Thomas Hylton, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is president of Save Our Land, Save Our Towns, a nonprofit organization that published “Renovate or Replace” with a grant from the William Penn Foundation (thomashylton@comcast.net). To download a copy, go to www.solsot.org and click on “Neighborhood Schools.”