Category Archive: Neighborhood Development
-
$43,000+ in Grants Awarded to Maintain and Restore Religious Proprerties
Carole Malakoff
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation
August 8, 2007Since January, $43,899 has been paid out in matching grant funds to help eight congregations maintain and restore their historic religious structures. Five of these grants were from last year’s grant cycle.
The organizations were:
2006:
– Calvary United Methodist, North Side
– Hawthorn Avenue Presbyterian, Crafton
– Union Project, East Liberty
– St. Andrews Episcopal, Highland Park
– St. Anthonys Chapel, Troy Hill2007 (to date)
– Zion Christian Church, Carrick
– Bethel Presbyterian, Bethel Park
– Valley Presbyterian, ImperialThree are churches that were just awarded grants this February and have already completed work. These grant funds enabled congregations to restore stained glass windows, perform roof and gutter work, and do stonework.
Tom Keffer ,Landmarks construction manager, has provided technical assistance to three congregations. He consulted on issues of general renovation procedures, roof repairs, and stained glass restoration.
Work recently completed at Monumental Baptist Church in The Hill included stone work above the main doorway. The lintel was on the verge of collapsing. Only one of the double doors could be opened safely. After work was completed, both doors can now be opened enabling safe and easy access into the sanctuary. Monumental Baptist raised their matching funds through Sunday service collections.
-
Renovations inch closer at historic Dormont pool
By Daveen Rae Kurutz
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, August 6, 2007After two seasons of uncertainty, Dormont Pool users can expect changes that will cement the future of the historic summer hot spot.
Dormont council is expected to approve a measure tonight to begin accepting bids to renovate the aging pool’s bathhouse.“It’s a good start to keeping this pool the centerpiece of the community,” said John Maggio, president of Friends of Dormont Pool, a nonprofit group that raised money for repairs. “Everyone’s been great and offered a lot of support.”
The organization, dedicated to keeping the 87-year-old pool from closing, collected about $812,000 from donors and in grants since spring 2006.
The group received $75,000 from Allegheny County and $250,000 from the state Department of Conservation of Natural Resources. Both grants require the borough to match the money.
Initially, officials estimated repairs at $2.6 million, but Maggio said $1 million is more realistic.The landmark art-deco pool, which opened in 1920, is believed to be the largest public pool in the state. Other than the addition of a community recreation room in 1996, the facility has undergone little renovation.
The pool almost closed last summer after officials discovered leaks and an unstable bathhouse. Friends of Dormont Pool formed and raised about $30,000 to pay for plugging leaks and shoring up the pump room.
In the offseason, workers sealed cracks and repaired pipes to ensure the pool would not leak.
“This is about 1 million gallons of water we’re talking about,” said Ann Conlin, a Dormont councilwoman. “That’s not something you want to mess with.”
Repairs are scheduled for the bathhouse and to support the nearby deck.
“Once these repairs are done, it could stay that way for many more years,” Conlin said. “But we want to add some amenities, but keep the footprint of the pool.”
Council will meet at 7:30 tonight at the municipal building on Hillsdale Avenue.
Maggio said the pool is an essential part of the borough’s identity.
The citizens group shouldered the burden of raising money, Conlin said. She and other borough officials say the group saved a community icon.
“”They’ve done a tremendous job … to make Dormont Pool a jewel,” Conlin said. “For generations to come, people will be able to keep driving down Banksville Road thinking, ‘Oh my God, it looks like a beach.’ The integrity of the pool will continue.”
Daveen Rae Kurutz can be reached at dkurutz@tribweb.com or 412-380-5627.
-
Market Square may get historical makeover
By Jeremy Boren
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, July 30, 2007Two Market Square landmarks could be poised to regain their early-20th century charm when the city’s Historic Review Commission weighs renovation plans Wednesday.
Developers and architects believe the improvements will heighten the appeal of the square — a place many avoid because of the prevalence of homeless people and panhandlers.
Washington County developer Lucas Piatt said exterior renovations to the vacant G.C. Murphy Building will restore a 1920s or ’30s era look, based on photographs of the store in its heyday. On the opposite side of Market Square, Nicholas Coffee Co. plans to turn a closed bar into a coffee shop with an old-style European look.
Most of Piatt’s $32 million renovation project is to begin by year’s end. Retail space will occupy the first floor of the G.C. Murphy Building, and most of the 38,000-square-foot headquarters of the YMCA will be on the second floor. The Y will occupy a portion of another floor as well.
“The benefit of having the activity back in the building is huge,” Piatt said. “The tax repercussions for the city will be phenomenal.”
Piatt’s project will receive about $6 million in state aid and benefit from tax credits for restoring historic buildings.
Downtown architecture firm Strada LLC is handling the design work on the G.C. Murphy Building and nearby structures, such as the adjoining seven-story D&K Building.
“There’s a combination of architectural styles within all these buildings,” said John Martin, a Strada principal. “We’re trying to bring the buildings as close as we can to their own original look.”
Original brick that was painted over will be exposed, decorative stone fixtures at the entrance will be rebuilt, and windows will be replaced.
“The (historic commission) would rather you don’t invent,” Martin said. “They don’t want it to be Disneyized.”
To avoid that, he’s relying on photographs of the buildings from the 1930s to help guide the design. Martin said he thinks the commission will approve the project. The changes still would need approval from the state Museum and Historic Commission.
Nicholas Coffee hopes to expand its imported coffee, tea and spices business to include the former Mick McGuire’s bar next door on Graeme Street. The Irish pub was closed Jan. 12 after police arrested three people accused of dealing drugs from the business.
Architect Doug Sipp of Sipp & Tepe Architects has designed about $50,000 worth of facade renovations for coffee shop owner Nicholas G. Nicholas. The interior would be changed into a cafe offering coffee, espresso, pastries and other treats.
“The facade will be like a step-down European storefront,” said Mike Kratsas, project manager. “There will be large windows like an old-time storefront.”
Arthur Ziegler, president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, welcomed both of the historically sensitive upgrades to Market Square.
“I think that both coming together give a great deal of substance to the effort to make the square a vital part of the residential Downtown,” Ziegler said. “Restoring historic buildings creates an environment where people want to be.”
Jeremy Boren can be reached at jboren@tribweb.com or 412-765-2312.
-
Children’s Museum award launches plaza repairs
Friday, July 20, 2007
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteAllegheny Square, the poorly maintained, concrete heart of the North Side’s Allegheny Center, could be in line for a dramatic makeover, sparked by the desire of the Children’s Museum to transform the 1960s plaza into what museum director Jane Werner calls “a green, sustainable park that’s actually used.”
To help get the process started, the museum has scheduled a collaborative design workshop for tomorrow, using a $50,000 cash prize it is receiving today for winning first place in the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence competition for its 2004 expansion.
Representatives of the Cambridge, Mass.-based Bruner Foundation will present the Gold Medal award this afternoon at the Children’s Museum.
The museum expansion, by Koning Eizenberg Architects of Santa Monica, Calif., and Perkins Eastman Architects of Pittsburgh, was chosen as the best of nearly 100 projects around the country for its blend of historic preservation and innovative, green design, as well as for the museum’s collaborations and partnerships with other organizations.
The Bruner Award is the museum’s second significant national honor; it won a design award from the American Institute of Architects last year.
At tomorrow’s workshop, to be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in front of the museum, six design firms will meet with museum-goers, North Side residents and other community members to learn what features they would like to see in a new park and town square.
The six designers are landscape architect Andrea Cochran, San Francisco; La Dallman Architects, Milwaukee; architect Doug Garofalo, Chicago; landscape architect Walter Hood, Berkeley, Calif.; landscape architect Dina Klavon, Pittsburgh; and landscape architect Paula Meijerink, Boston. They were chosen from a field of 25 designers, based on portfolios of past work, by representatives of the museum, local design community and the North Side neighborhood.
Everyone is invited to tomorrow’s workshop — or charrette — and those who attend can consult base-map drawings of the existing plaza to produce their own schemes on tracing paper.
Four sand boxes will be set up with scaled items such as people, benches, trees, trash cans and lights, and visitors can design their own parks in three dimensions. Digital cameras will document the designs to capture ideas before other visitors have a go at it.
Participants also can write the top three features they would like to see in the park, as well as the top three functions they would like it to serve, on quilt squares that will be hung for display.
“It’s a little bit free-form,” Ms. Werner said.
While museum staffers conduct the hands-on activities, the six competing designers will be talking with participants and perhaps drawing with them, Ms. Werner said. “It’ll be a little like speed-dating.”
In October, designers will submit their schemes, which will be informally reviewed in a series of community meetings. Later that month, a jury of national design professionals and community leaders will pick the winning designer.
The multilevel Allegheny Square is one of the city’s most interesting but least used public spaces, with a large, stepped, sunken fountain — now defunct — designed to double as an amphitheater and three overlooks that provide views into the plaza, as well as shade.
“I worked at Buhl [Science Center] in 1982,” Ms. Werner said. “I remember the fountain working and kids running through it. But it was so hot to sit out there because there was no shade and it was always a little scary to go under the overhangs.”
The designers could retain some elements of the plaza or reference two of its earlier, greener iterations. Diamond Square had perimeter trees, intersecting diagonal paths and a central, circular fountain surrounded by benches.
In 1939, with the construction of Buhl Planetarium, the fountain was removed and the square redesigned and renamed Ober Park (honoring the fountain’s donor), but remained mostly lawn.
“The Children’s Museum wants to create a new oasis in the city for families, college students, the elderly, Children’s Museum visitors and workers, as well as a place for community events — in a way that builds upon the strengths of the plaza’s history,” said Chris Siefert, the museum’s deputy director.
The designers have been asked to create a green, sustainable park, but have been given a free hand in interpreting what that means.
Although the park could be built within five years, there is no fixed timeline or budget.
The museum will use the Bruner Award’s cash prize to help plan the new park and town square, and also to launch the “Charm Bracelet” project linking North Side and North Shore attractions. One idea is to create a temporary art gallery within the Federal Street underpass.
The Bruner Foundation was established in New York in 1963 by Rudy Bruner, a Romanian immigrant who built a small metals company in a Brooklyn basement into a multimillion dollar public corporation. He and his wife Martha established the foundation “to create opportunity for others, and to instigate meaningful social change,” according to its Web site, www.brunerfoundation.org.
The Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence, given every two years, was founded in 1987 by their son, architect Simeon Bruner of Cambridge, who now heads the foundation. The award is dedicated to discovering and celebrating urban places “distinguished by quality design, and by their social, economic and contextual contributions to the urban environment.”
Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590
-
Nephew seeks city historic status for August Wilson home
By Jodi Weigand
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, July 12, 2007The nephew of late Pittsburgh playwright August Wilson wants his uncle’s childhood home to mean as much to the community as did the man who once lived there.
“He wrote plays about the Hill District that took on national significance,” attorney Paul Ellis Jr. said of his uncle’s 10-play chronicle of black American life.
On Wednesday, Ellis asked the city’s Historic Review Commission to name Wilson’s former home — at 1727 Bedford Ave. — a historic structure. Commission members will vote Aug. 1. The request would need approval from the city Planning Commission and City Council.
“I don’t think there’s a question about whether we should designate this,” said commission Chairman Michael Stern.
The state dedicated a historical marker in May.
Ellis, 37, lives a block away from where Wilson grew up with his five brothers and sisters. Ellis bought the house in 2005 — the same year his uncle died at age 60. He began pursuing the historical designation about a year later.
“Many of the identified historical aspects in the Hill are gone,” Steven Paul, executive director of Preservation Pittsburgh, told the commission. “This is an example of an important structure for the community.”
Ellis said he has begun interior renovations and plans to restore the exterior of the structure to what it looked like when Wilson was a child.
“(The task) is physically and emotionally draining,” Ellis said. “What keeps me going is the spirit of my uncle and the desire to make a significant contribution to my community.
-
Postal Service staying in Carnegie, but not in old post office
Thursday, July 12, 2007
By Carole Gilbert Brown
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteThe bad news for Carnegie is that the U.S. Postal Service is not interested in continuing ownership of its landmark post office building on East Main Street in the heart of the borough.
But the really good news is that the Postal Service intends to remain in the borough and relocate into leased space at the corner of Broadway and East Main streets, just a few blocks away.
No time frame for the relocation has been announced.
The developments were announced following a special meeting Monday afternoon at the Carnegie Municipal Building attended by U. S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, a team of USPS officials from the Pittsburgh District Post Office and representatives from Carnegie, Collier, Moon and Robinson.
“They don’t want to own buildings anymore is what they said,” reported Carnegie Council member Dorothy Kelly, who attended the private meeting.
She went on to say that she made a case for the federal government to turn over the 1916 Beaux Arts style building to the borough, arguing that, as a government building, it has not had to pay taxes on the structure and that it has failed to keep up with routine maintenance.
The roof leaks and some sections of the building, which was designed and built to be a post office, need to be painted.
Because of its age, architecture and history, the building would qualify for listings in national and state historic landmark registries.
Mrs. Kelly said she did not receive a specific response to her suggestion, though postal officials said future uses for the building would be handled by its assets management department.
Authorities indicated the USPS has suffered financially because of competition from private mail delivery services like UPS and FedEx. Last November, USPS spokesman Tad Kelley said, “What’s important to us is that we have a delivery [method] for people in the Carnegie ZIP code and that we have retail space.”
The Carnegie 15106 ZIP code serves Carnegie, Rosslyn Farms, Heidelberg and portions of Scott and Collier.
He added that USPS is trying to keep costs in line with services and comply with Americans With Disabilities Act requirements.
The new location would have access to parking in front of the Family Dollar store, as well as maneuvering ease to a loading dock.
Monday’s session also addressed concerns from surrounding, growing communities that would like to have their own ZIP codes. Moon shares its 15108 ZIP code with Coraopolis, but five ZIP codes service Robinson and four are used in Collier.
Mr. Kelley said last year that municipalities often attach their identities to ZIP codes, which the USPS views as simply numerical paths for sorting mail, much of which is done by automation.
Municipal representatives interested in obtaining single ZIP codes for their communities were given procedural information and contact numbers.
(Carole Gilbert Brown is a freelance writer. )
-
More condos proposed for Strip District
By Mark Belko,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Wednesday, July 11, 2007Yet another condo project is in the works not far from Downtown.
Solara Venture IV, LLC is seeking a loan of up to $390,000 from the city Urban Redevelopment Authority to help finance acquisition and pre-development costs for a proposed 60-unit condominium development in the Strip District.
The company is planning to convert the Otto Milk Building on Smallman Street between 24th and 25th streets into condos, with smaller units starting at $180,000, according to the URA. The development also would include two floors of retail and office space, plus 75 parking stalls.
URA board members are expected to consider a Pittsburgh Development Fund loan of up to $390,000 at their meeting this week.
-
New owner is restoring the 80-year-old George Washington Hotel – Builder falls in love with Washington historic treasure
Sunday, July 08, 2007By Gretchen McKay,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteAs a builder who specializes in high-end period restorations, Kyrk Pyros is something of a sucker for historic structures.
When it comes to deciding which long-forgotten buildings are worth bringing back from the dead, though, the Thornburg resident and president of KP Builders in Robinson is usually pretty good at following the No. 1 rule of commercial real estate: Keep your emotions out of it.
Fall in love with a building, Mr. Pyros cautions, and you might end up basing a decision to buy on how the property looks and makes you feel instead of whether it makes sense from a financial or functional standpoint. And that, he says, “is a bad thing.”
So what was he thinking, buying the 200-room George Washington Hotel in downtown Washington? Abandoned by a series of owners who followed what Mr. Pyros calls the “deferred maintenance plan,” the 80-year-old landmark was pretty much uninhabitable by the time he spied it for sale four years ago in the classified section of Preservation, a magazine put out by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. And it was in Washington County, of all places, not in Washington, D.C., as he’d assumed when he first read the ad.
“I couldn’t believe it, to be honest with you,” Mr. Pyros, 40, recalls with a laugh. “It was like, you mean the Washington 30 miles south of Pittsburgh?”
Yet a historic treasure is still a historic treasure, no matter what its location, and Mr. Pyros, who also owns Allegheny Crane Rental in Richland, was well acquainted with the building’s past. Designed by renowned architect William Lee Stoddart, the George Washington Hotel for much of its history counted famous actors, politicians, athletes and even rock stars among its guests.
John F. Kennedy gave a speech to supporters from the marble steps of its Oval Room when he was campaigning for the presidency, and baseball great Lou Gehrig and car maker Henry Ford also checked in. So did the Beatles when they finally made it to Pittsburgh in September 1964 for a long-awaited show at the Civic Arena.
But who could blame them? The hotel was modeled after the famous Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., where President and Mrs. Lincoln lived before they moved into the White House in 1861. The 10-story building boasted a two-story, balconied grand ballroom with hardwood floors and crystal chandeliers and a grand entrance on West Cherry Avenue that delivered guests into an exquisite marbled lobby. It also featured an equally elegant dining room that told the story of the Whiskey Rebellion in the early 1790s via a series of murals by Washington artist Malcolm Parcell (1896-1987).
So, even though the hotel — which at the time was being used for Section 8 housing — was close to being condemned, Mr. Pyros followed his heart instead of his head and put in a bid. Many of the small towns he’d stayed in over the years had wonderful boutique hotels; just look at the Inn at Little Washington in the Shenandoah Valley or the Buhl Mansion in Sharon, Mercer County. With Washington on the upswing, he reasoned, perhaps the time was ripe for one there, too.
“I thought it was great,” he said, recalling how he sped to the site within 30 minutes of making the call on a Friday night. “I could see the potential.”
Four years into a projected five- to seven-year project, Mr. Pyros is well on his way to accomplishing that goal. With all of its 72 apartments renovated and the facility’s banquet and restaurant businesses flourishing, he’s about to embark on the final stage of this labor of love: construction of the first 16 of 32 hotel rooms on the third and fourth floors. They should be open by the end of September, says Mr. Pyros, with the final 16 being completed by Christmas.
At the same time, a work crew will renovate the spacious lobby so it’s the image of what existed when the hotel opened in 1923.
In addition to refurbishing all the intricate plaster work on the main and mezzanine levels and restoring the inlaid mosaic marble floor, they’ll add the same kind of giant wood registration desk that distinguishes the Willard. Cushy furniture and a giant Oriental rug are also planned.
“We pay attention to detail,” says Mr. Pyros. “We want it crisp and perfect. Our motto is to be the best.”
To help establish the hotel’s boutique character, each room will be named after a famous person who stayed there, and have its own unique theme. For example, there will be Kennedy and Ford rooms, along with one that pays homage to the Beatles. All will be priced from about $135 on weekdays and from $195 on weekends.
Mr. Pyros concedes that in a city where many consider a half-hour drive from home a day’s trip — and the Point is just 30 minutes from downtown Washington — it may be difficult to attract those first guests. But he’s confident once they see it as a destination, that will change.
Already, he notes, the hotel is booking banquets and weddings in its two ballrooms for guests from as far away as Greensburg, Westmoreland County, and Weirton, W.Va. In addition, one of his first projects after purchasing the hotel — turning a boarded-up storeroom on the ground level into the casual Cherry Blossom Bistro — is pulling in regular crowds.
So is Bradford’s, an old hair salon-turned neighborhood bar that serves upscale wines to the white-collar crowd. It’s named after Whiskey Rebellion leader David Bradford, whose 1788 house just a few blocks away on South Main Street is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“We’re at the crossroad of the U.S., on the National Road,” he says. “Interstates “79, 70 and [Route] 19 all intersect here. So I believe it will be successful.”
Patrons will certainly have someplace nice to while away the evening, in the renovated Pioneer Grill. Previous owners boarded up those famous Parcell paintings in this old-fashioned, formal dining room. But under Mr. Pyros’ ownership, the murals, which are valued at $3.8 million, once again set the stage for diners who stop by to enjoy chef Renee Gordon’s upscale menu.
Since February, Ms. Gordon has also offered “white glove” dinners one weekend a month in the renovated Oval Room. Priced between $60 and $80 per couple, the five-course meals include everything from appetizers and dessert to such gourmet entrees as Mediterranean Halibut in Parchment. This month’s dinner, offered on July 13-14, will feature all Italian dishes.
“Every weekend is busier and busier,” says manager Ron DeVerse, who also is the administrator of the Cherry Tree Assisted Living facility on the sixth floor.
Taking the old hotel where he wants it to go, Mr. Pyros readily concedes, hasn’t been easy. One small setback, for example, was an electrical fire Oct. 15 that destroyed two entire floors. Because the building was built out of cast-in-place concrete, it didn’t do any structural damage.
And it hasn’t been cheap; when the project is finished, he expects to have sunk about $8 million into it.
“When you have a vision and believe in something, you have to go all the way,” says Mr. Pyros. “Once I start something, I don’t quit.”
(Gretchen McKay can be reached at gmckay@post-gazette.com or 412-761-4670. )