Category Archive: News Wire Services
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Casino prompts worry
By Bill Zlatos and Andrew Conte
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, February 3, 2006The Penguins proposal to build a casino in the Lower Hill District as part of a new arena deal is drawing opposition from nearby Duquesne University.
University President Charles Dougherty said Thursday he wants to protect the school’s 10,000 students from the distractions of gambling. “About one-third of them live on campus, and we don’t want them exposed to a slots parlor within a five-minute walk of campus.”
The Penguins have partnered with Isle of Capri Casinos, a gambling company based in Biloxi, Miss., and Nationwide Realty Investors, a company from Columbus, Ohio, that built a privately-funded arena in that city.
The three partners would form a nonprofit group called Pittsburgh First. Their proposal would transform the Lower Hill District with a casino, new 18,000-seat arena and 28 acres of housing and restaurants on the site of Mellon Arena.
Dougherty favors the commercial and housing aspects of the plan. He stressed that the university’s opposition to the casino does not mean that it is against the Penguins or a new arena for the hockey team.
“We’re fast friends with the Penguins,” he said. “We think the casino should be placed away from large concentrations of students and the owners forced to contribute to build a new arena.”
Dougherty cited studies that show the harmful effects of gambling on young adults. A Harvard report, for example, found that college students are three times more likely than adults and 20.5 percent more likely than youths to be “clinically disordered” gamblers.
“We also know that in some cases, casinos have drawn other problems like problems with alcohol, problems with illegal drugs and problems with prostitution,” he said.
Placing a casino close to college students is asking for trouble, agrees Bill Thompson, a professor of public administration at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.
“Even (winning) $500 gives them a big rush, and they want the rush again,” said Thompson, an author on gambling. “If they get on a winning streak early, they can be hooked for life.”
Penguins officials were disappointed by Duquesne’s announcement.
“We think gaming is the economic engine that would invest over a billion dollars to revitalize the neighborhood around Duquesne University and actually make the city and the campus more livable,” said David Morehouse, the Penguins’ senior consultant.
“If the concern is that Duquesne students will frequent the casino, we want them to know the Isle of Capri is adamant about enforcing the age requirement of 21 to gamble.”
An age limit, however, will only create a boom in the market for false ID cards, Thompson said.
Members of a volunteer group studying ways to minimize the adverse impact of Pittsburgh’s casinos will review Duquesne’s decision.
“We’re going to weigh all of that public opinion,” said Anne Swager, co-chairwoman of the Pittsburgh Gaming Task Force. “We had hoped all along the casino can be a good neighbor.”
Asked whether a casino can be a good neighbor to a university, Swager said she had no idea.
“It just illustrates that there are multiple points of view, and that there’s going to be a tremendous challenge in reconciling the various viewpoints that exist about all three potential sites,” said Ron Porter, the other co-chair of the Pittsburgh Gaming Task Force. “All three have pluses and minuses.”
The Lower Hill District site is one of three proposed for slots in the city and one of four in Allegheny County.
Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises wants to open Harrah’s Station Square Casino. Detroit casino owner Don Barden wants to build a Majestic Star Casino on the North Shore. And Hays machine operator Thamer Collins wants to put a casino on vacant land near the Waterfront shopping center in West Homestead.
Dougherty said he had made his decision in consultation with his staff and the executive committee of Duquesne’s board of directors. He said board member Glenn Mahone — who owns a minority stake in the Station Square casino proposal — was not part of those discussions.
The University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, located a few miles away in Oakland, have not taken positions on the proposed casino.
The Gaming Control Board, a seven-member group of state regulators, could issue casino licenses this summer.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Giant Harrah’s unveils plan for Station Square casino complex
By Bill Toland,
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteEarly in their presentation to the news media, Harrah’s Entertainment and Forest City Enterprises played their trump card — Harrah’s, the largest gaming firm in the United States, is a man among boys, and their proposed Station Square casino is bigger than the ones drawn up by small-fry competitors.
Harrah’s envisions not only a slot machine casino, but also riverside restaurants, high-end shops, a 1,200-seat event hall, a VIP lounge and a two-story sports bar with a panoramic view of Pittsburgh’s skyline. “It’s more than just a slots parlor,” said Jan Jones, a senior vice president with Harrah’s and the former mayor of Las Vegas. It will be, she hopes, a weekend resort.
Yesterday, Harrah’s and financing partner Forest City made their long-awaited pitch from a meeting room at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel, which itself would expand by 200 rooms if the plan wins the state’s blessing.
The linchpin of the dramatic $1 billion makeover of Station Square would be the $512 million casino, with floor space equivalent to seven football fields. The casino would open with 3,000 slots, with room for expansion.
The casino is the economic engine of the plan, which would allow Forest City to expand the existing Sheraton, perhaps build another hotel tower, and add up to 1,200 condominium units, if demand meets expectation. Initially, developers expect about 2,000 permanent jobs but that could increase to 3,000 when the project is completed.
The casino, which would sit on the west side of Station Square, would displace the concert amphitheater there now. The condo towers would be to the east of the Smithfield Street Bridge, where a former warehouse now is home to several clubs and restaurants.
The condos are the key to the project’s overall theme of “new urbanism,” an old buzzword used liberally yesterday by Danno Glanz, a principal with the design firm Calthorpe Associates. New urbanism is a concept whose chief element seems to be mixed-use buildings in city cores — residential on the top floors, with offices or retail space taking up the bottom floors.
The proposed condo towers are also across the street from a light rail station and next to the Smithfield Street Bridge, which many South Side and Mount Washington residents cross every day on the way to Downtown jobs.
The potential for connection “is an amazing resource,” Mr. Glanz said. “It’s not often in our field that you get to work with a site that has the potential to realize so many components of new urbanism all in one project.”
Whereas one of their rivals for the city’s lone available casino license, Isle of Capri Casinos Inc., wants to invest its winnings in a new hockey arena for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Harrah’s and Forest City believe that creating a new city neighborhood from scratch is the better form of community development.
Brian Ratner, a top Forest City official, said his company has no plans to put a share of casino proceeds toward a new hockey arena, but added that he’d be willing to talk to local officials.
Two other outfits, both of which want to build a casino on the North Shore, are also competing for the casino license. The 2004 law that allows slot machine gambling in Pennsylvania permits only one casino to be built within Pittsburgh’s city limits.
The Station Square casino complex, which would also include a parking garage to the west of the casino, would bring about yet another face lift to what is considered the city’s top tourist destination. In the quarter century since Station Square opened, it has been transformed from what was essentially a city mall into an entertainment hub with nightspots, restaurants, coffee shops, a fountain, a tented concert hall and the iconic Hard Rock Cafe.
Much of that change has transpired since Forest City and Harrah’s bought the 52-acre complex in 1994, and all along, the companies have hoped to build some kind of casino there. (Forest City later bought out Harrah’s share, though the two have remained partners.)
At first, it appeared that the state would legalize riverboat gambling, and Station Square, already home to the Gateway Clipper Fleet, was the logical home for a floating casino.
That never came to pass. But thanks to the 2004 gambling law, Forest City, which has tried, but failed, to enter the gambling industry in other states, may finally realize a longtime dream.
“We’ve been joking for years that legalized gambling is right around corner,” Mr. Ratner said several times yesterday. “It turned out to be a very long block.”
Construction could begin immediately after the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board awards the casino licenses, which should happen by early 2007. It might take as long as eight years to build the full complement of condos, and the timeline is largely dependant on demand.
Ms. Jones said this would be the only Harrah’s casino that does not offer table games such as roulette and blackjack, which typically are needed to give a casino its high-roller atmosphere and bring in visitors younger than 40. Those big spenders, who drop their money at clubs and shops instead of into slot machines, will need to be recruited if Harrah’s hopes to realize its goal of $550 million in yearly revenue.
Absent any contribution to the Mellon Arena replacement fund, the main community investment component of the Forest City plan would be a $25 million endowment for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. That endowment would be complemented by an annual $1 million community investment fund, to be headed by former Pittsburgh Steelers star Franco Harris.
Mr. Harris is one of several local investors who would own a 25 percent stake in the project. Other investors include William Lieberman and Charles Zappala, both of whom are politically connected Democratic fund-raisers, attorney Glenn Mahone, and Yvonne Cook, who was the top assistant to former county Chief Executive Jim Roddey.
(Bill Toland can be reached at btoland@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1889.)
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Places: Market Square ain’t broke, so please don’t fix it
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Monday, January 23, 2006A little more than five years ago, during the barrage of competing plans for the Fifth-Forbes district, New York developer Stan Eckstut made an observation that had never occurred to me, and probably many others: Downtown Pittsburgh has too much public open space for a healthy retail environment.
In the alternative proposal he developed for Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, Eckstut suggested eliminating some of that open space by building a new market house in Market Square.
Earlier this month, in one of his first volleys as mayor, Bob O’Connor said that Downtown doesn’t have enough parks and green space. He wants to create more for the many new residents it will be getting when about 3,000 apartments and condominiums are built Downtown over the next few years. For one thing, O’Connor wants to eliminate the crossroads through Market Square — Market Street and Forbes Avenue — and turn its four quadrants into a small park.
Eckstut’s observation was a sound one, but his solution was flawed. And for much the same reasons, only part of O’Connor’s idea is worth embracing.
Downtown does have a lot of public open space, much of it clustered at the western tip of the triangle, in Point State Park and Gateway Center. But Eckstut also was referring to the many public plazas created in the last half of the 20th century — Mellon Square, PNC Plaza (along Wood Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues), USX Plaza, Heinz Hall Plaza, PPG Plaza, Katz Plaza and Mellon Green. And let’s not forget the new linear parks lining both sides of the Allegheny River.
No, Downtown Pittsburgh as a whole doesn’t want for public open space. Still, small “pocket parks” could be tucked in on narrow lots between buildings, as space allows and residential density dictates. Manhattan’s Paley Park, with a city-noise-screening water wall, moveable tables and chairs and shade-giving locust trees, is a good model.
O’Connor is right, though, in suggesting that buses be rerouted out of Market Square. With brick and Belgian block streets and lined mostly with historic and low-rise buildings, the square has a relaxed, pedestrian feel — until a bus bears down on you, catching you unawares. Removing them would go a long way in improving the ambience and air quality.But O’Connor also wants to close to vehicles McMasters Way and Graeme Street, which connect Fifth Avenue with the square, and eliminate Market Street and Forbes Avenue through the square. It’s almost never a good idea to close streets to cars where businesses are located, as the failed pedestrian malls of the 1960s in East Liberty, on the North Side and in many other American cities proved. Cars bring people, and people bring their shopping dollars and watchful eyes to the street. Closing Forbes through the square would have the domino effect of turning the blocks adjacent to it, between Stanwix and the square and between Wood and the square, into dead-end streets, making travel by car there difficult and jeopardizing those businesses as well.
And what, really, would be gained by turning Market Square into a grassy park? It already provides shade trees, a stage and plenty of seating, thanks to the low granite walls that surround three of the four quadrants. Most people don’t sit on grass, but it does provide comfortable bedding for vagrants and the homeless, as the edges of Point State Park attest.
The mayor thinks the square has an “old, tired” look. It’s supposed to look old; it’s historic. Tired? I just don’t see it, at least not in the design of the square.
Despite the drug dealing and the bars, which won’t go away if the streets are closed, Market Square is one of Downtown’s liveliest and most successful public spaces. In the warm months, men play chess there, vendors hawk fruits and vegetables, art students play hacky-sack, bike messengers take their breaks, office workers and culinary students eat their lunches, and the pigeons — a component of every thriving public square — couldn’t be happier.
Here’s another reason not to monkey with Market Square: The intersection of Forbes Avenue and Market Street is sacrosanct, the historic heart and soul of Pittsburgh. Even during the more than four decades that the massive Diamond Market occupied the square, both roads passed beneath it.
Those streets through and around Market Square are among the oldest in the city, dating to the Woods-Vickroy plan of 1784. The public square — which Scotch-Irish Pittsburgh called the Diamond, like the ones back home in Northern Ireland — was a gift that year from the heirs of William Penn, who owned the land.
In January 1800, the square’s new Georgian-style courthouse hosted the memorial service for President Washington, and soon also was being used as a borough meeting house and community theater. By 1815, the square also held a crescent-shaped market-house, which was replaced by a new market house in 1853. Diamond Market, built in 1914, was torn down in 1961, and the square reverted to public open space.
Market Square, as it’s now known, once again is our Speaker’s Corner and rallying place, comfortably home to noon-time concerts, sports celebrations and political protests.
“BETTER DEAD THAN RED,” Chinese students protested in 1979, when President Carter normalized relations with Peking. In 1985, a libertarian man wearing a barrel and carrying a “BORN FREE, TAXED TO DEATH” sign led a horse carrying a woman wearing a long blond wig and a flesh-colored body suit through Market Square, as they re-enacted Lady Godiva’s 11th-century tax protest. The square as civic center is exactly what the Penns envisioned, and turning it into a lawn would shut all of that down.
If the mayor wants to update Market Square, he could, as a friend said last week, make it wireless, along with PPG Plaza and that congenial connecting space between them. Marrying historic form with high-tech capability, after all, is a large part of what 21st-century Pittsburgh should be about.
(Architecture critic Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590.)
Copyright ©1997-2005 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Station Square slots casino details unveiled
By Bill Toland,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Monday, January 23, 2006Harrah’s and Forest City Enterprises unveiled their Station Square casino plans today, proposing a $512 million casino, more than 1,200 condominium units and several hundred new hotel rooms, a sweeping facelift of what is already considered Pittsburgh’s top tourist destination.
In all, the companies are proposing $1 billion in new development. Construction could begin immediately after the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board awards the casino licenses, said Jan Jones, a senior vice president with Harrah’s and former mayor of Las Vegas. Harrah’s and Forest City are in competition with three other outfits, all of which are seeking the lone license available for a casino to be built within Pittsburgh’s city limits. Harrah’s and Forest City are considered one of two frontrunners, the other being the Isle of Capri, a riverboat casino company that has partnered with the Pittsburgh Penguins and pledged to build a new hockey venue to replace Mellon Arena.
Forest City has made no such pledge. The main community investment component of the Forest City plan is a $25 million endowment for the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation and a $1 million community investment fund that would be headed by former Steelers running back Franco Harris.
The Harrah’s casino complex, with 400,000 square feet of floor space, is roughly the size of seven football fields and is the largest of the casinos so far proposed for the City of Pittsburgh. The casino would sit on the west side of the Station Square complex, displacing the concert amphitheater that sits there now.
The condominium towers would be to the east of the Smithfield Street Bridge, likely displacing the warehouse building that is now home to several nightclubs.
More details in tomorrow’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
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Developer applauds O’Connor
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Friday, January 13, 2006Local developer Ralph Falbo was pleased to learn Thursday that Mayor Bob O’Connor is willing to listen to multiple proposals for revitalizing the Fifth-Forbes corridor Downtown.
Falbo, who would like to put a residential/grocery/retail store project in the vacant G.C. Murphy building at the entry point to Market Square, is one of several local and national developers who say they’d be interested in taking a stab at projects in that key area of Downtown.
“I think it’s high time that this is opened up to a lot of different people,” said Falbo yesterday, the day after O’Connor disclosed his intentions during a meeting with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors.
O’Connor said he still is willing to consider a master development plan being prepared for a group of city-owned properties along Fifth Avenue by Madison Marquette, a major Washington, D.C. based developer.
But while Madison Marquette continues to prepare its plan, he will welcome proposals from other developers and then determine what’s the best deal for the city.
“We have spent a great deal of time putting together a proposal,” said Falbo, whose company is building 151 FirstSide, an 18-story, 82-unit upscale condominium project Downtown.
He hopes to meet with officials of O’Connor’s administration next month to discuss the new project, which he first introduced early last year.
The mayor would be well-served to listen to Falbo, and other developers with viable ideas for projects Downtown, said Aaron Stauber, managing director of Rugby Realty Co., of Tieterboro, N.J.
“You should look at what’s been happening in the Cultural District over the last several years, just by doing development piece by piece,” said Stauber, whose company has been involved in several of those projects.
Rugby, which owns more than 10 city properties, including the Gulf Tower, Manor and Frick buildings, also would be interested in projects along Fifth and Forbes avenues, Stauber said.
“We would be eager to have conversations with Mayor O’Connor and his team regarding this subject,” said R. Damian Soffer, owner and president of Soffer Organization.
Soffer, whose 34-acre SouthSide Works project has revitalized a former steel mill site on the South Side, said the success of the project demonstrates urban renewal can work.
O’Connor’s decision also was welcomed by Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
The preservationist organization, which developed the successful Station Square complex on the South Side, recently offered to assist the city in preserving and providing development expertise for three deteriorated but historically significant buildings on Market Street and Fifth.
“Various developers have called me and expressed great interest in reuse of historic buildings in the corridor,” said Ziegler, who did not identify the companies involved.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
Images and text copyright © 2004 by The Tribune-Review Publishing Co.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Preserving landmarks in the Hill
By Andrew Johnson
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, January 13, 2006To longtime Hill District residents, it looks as though bombs destroyed some of the buildings in their neighborhood.
“It’s like a war-torn country,” said Bedford Avenue resident Irene Herndon, now in her 70s.Where once the Roosevelt Theatre stood on Centre Avenue, now there is a parking lot. A smallish Subway restaurant and Cheap Tobacco & More have replaced the entertainment mecca.
One thing still standing in the Hill, left completely untouched, is August Wilson’s childhood home.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, who died in October, grew up at 1727 Bedford Ave.
Although Wilson prospered in New York, Seattle and St. Paul, Minn., his Pittsburgh roots remained strong. Of his 10 plays about 20th-century life for blacks in America, nine were based in Pittsburgh.
Wilson’s legacy has gotten more respect than his Pittsburgh landmark.
“I think it’s significant enough to be part of any planned tour of Pittsburgh,” said Wilson’s nephew, Paul A. Ellis Jr.
Early last year, Ellis bought the Bedford Avenue home for $25,300.
Ellis, 36, wonders how much interest exists in preserving his uncle’s neglected home.
The house sold for $3,000 in 1997.
Outside of the home is a sign: “No loafing please.” The street is typically empty. There is a phone booth but no phone, an empty grocer on the first floor and a vacant watch-repair store next door. “RIP Bug, Scrobb, Diggs, MiMi and Booky,” reads writing on the home’s door.
Any restoration is likely to be expensive.
Ellis said it cost him more than $70,000 to renovate his grandmother’s two-story Bedford Avenue home a couple blocks down.
Before Wilson’s death, there were discussions about preserving the house. So far, nothing has happened.
Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh chairman Dan Holland said the house is worth saving.
“We’re losing a lot of what makes our city unique,” Holland said.
The association, which sent Ellis a packet of information about preservation, gives advice but no money.
Laurence Glasco, who teaches a course about the city’s black history at the University of Pittsburgh, said he would like to see Wilson’s house saved. He said the building and watch store represent the scope of racial diversity in the old neighborhood.
Glasco said Italian immigrants ran the repair store, a Jewish family operated the grocery, and the Wilsons, a black family, lived upstairs.
“The house kind of symbolizes that racial diversity,” Glasco said.
Glasco said the Hill was the first residential area in the city, home to 19th-century immigrants who walked from the Hill to jobs Downtown.
Today, residents said they can’t find much of anything that properly reflects their history.
The Hill District has 11 recognized landmarks, said Frank Stroker, assistant archivist for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
Even when some Hill sites have been honored in the past, it has not changed their decayed state.
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission placed a plaque outside the Crawford Grill, a famed jazz club, in 2001.
Today, there is a torn-up carpet in front of the closed club.
There are some homemade tributes to Wilson outside Centre Avenue’s New Granada Theatre.
“August, your work has ensured that we will never be forgotten,” reads one of the white signs posted on the building.
The New Granada itself sits abandoned, decades after it closed.
Snapshots from the Hill
Much of the Hill District’s rich history already has been lost, said Dan Holland, chairman of the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh.
George Moses, 61, who lives on Centre Avenue, has a map of old churches, bars and other places he has pieced together. But that map hasn’t helped him find his childhood home.
Moses said he was born in the Lower Hill, but now, “I don’t even know what street I was on.” That’s how much the Hill changed when the Civic Arena — later renamed Mellon Arena — opened in 1961, he said. The arena replaced much of the Lower Hill when it was built.
Angelique Bamberg, historic-preservation planner for the city, said of the 75 “historic structures” in the city, only four are in the Hill District.
“There is not enough proportionally,” said Laurence Glasco, a University of Pittsburgh professor, who teaches about the city’s black history.
A City Historic Designation can be given to districts or individual buildings within the Pittsburgh city limits that are significant for architectural or historical reasons.
The designation helps protect old buildings from wrecking balls, provided they remain structurally sound, Bamberg said.
Public money does not help pay to maintain these buildings, she said.
To nominate a building, civic groups or individuals can submit a nomination to the Historic Review Commission. The HRC and the City Planning Commission review the nomination and make recommendations to City Council. Public hearings by the HRC and City Council are part of the process of reviewing nominations. City Council makes the final decision.
Frank Stroker, assistant archivist for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, said the Hill District also has 11 historic landmarks.
To be considered a historic landmark in Allegheny County, a structure must be at least 50 years old and deemed architecturally significant. The Historic Plaque Designation Committee meets once a year to review nominations and recommend awards.
A historic-landmark designation provides no safeguard against demolition, Stroker said.
Preserving the Hill
The city has designated these Hill District buildings historic structures:
New Granada Theatre
John Wesley A.M.E. Zion Church
Centre Avenue YMCA
Madison Elementary School
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has designated these sites as historic landmarks:William H. McKelvy Gifted Center
Weil Technology Institute
Herron Hill Park
St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church
Hill House Kaufmann Auditorium
Connelly Technical Institute
Church of the Epiphany
Church of St. Benedict the Moor
Letsche Education Center
Madison Elementary School
Miller African Centered Academy
Andrew Johnson can be reached at ajohnson@tribweb.com or 412-380-5632.
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Local companies in command of Fifth-Forbes development
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Sunday, January 8, 2006Local developers finally hold the keys to unlocking the economic potential of Pittsburgh’s deteriorated Fifth-Forbes retail corridor.
That’s a good thing, says Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, the preservationist organization that developed Station Square.
Ziegler has long advocated giving a variety of companies a role in developing the area in and around Fifth and Forbes avenues.
He applauds the fact that Washington County-based Millcraft Industries Inc., headed by members of the Piatt family, now has the lead in trying to find new uses for the former Lazarus-Macy’s department store, and that the J.J. Gumberg Co. of Braddock Hills owns and is spearheading efforts to redevelop the former Lord & Taylor department store building.
Ziegler also salutes Oxford Development Co.’s involvement in PNC Financial Services Group’s recently announced plan to build a $122 million office/hotel/condominium building along Fifth Avenue that will be home to Reed Smith, one of the city’s largest law firms.
“I think those are major steps and a breakthrough in efforts to develop Fifth-Forbes,” said Ziegler, who has suggested the city should copy a plan that helped Baltimore revitalize part of its downtown.
In Baltimore, an $800 million project driven mainly by private investment and fueled by historic preservation tax credits is being used to renew a 26-block area.
The city developed a package of buildings, specific uses and quality levels, and offered the packages to developers on the open market, he said.
If Pittsburgh’s leaders adopt a similar plan, more local and national developers might be persuaded to take a look at redeveloping pieces of Fifth and Forbes, Ziegler believes.
“This demonstrates the fact that there are other local developers who would possibly be willing to get involved in Fifth-Forbes if the opportunity were available,” he said, referring to the involvement of Millcraft, Oxford and Gumberg.
Three out-of-town developers have considered becoming the master developer for city-owned properties Fifth-Forbes, only to walk away, and now the private-led Pittsburgh Task Force is currently working with Madison Marquette, a company based in Washington, D.C., on a development plan for Downtown.
Ziegler has hopes that project also will be successful, but if it is not, then he believes the city should open up the field to other developers.
New Mayor Bob O’Connor already has said he would consider allowing other private developers to buy Downtown properties owned by the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority if the Madison Marquette plan fails.
In the meantime, Pittsburgh History & Landmarks has offered to help the city preserve several deteriorated buildings Downtown, including 439 Market St., an historic three-story building off Market Square.
Last month, the city’s Historic Review Commission approved a plan to preserve the unique facade of the 130-year-old structure while demolishing a majority of the rest of the building.
The plan is for the city’s engineering and construction department to shore up the building’s side walls with bracing and put up a temporary roof and rear wall that would be replaced once a development plan is in place for the area.
Landmarks, which joined with the historic preservation group Preserve Pittsburgh to support partial demolition of the building, has offered the city a no-interest loan of up to $75,000 to help pay for the work.
Real estate notes:
Funding for construction of 15 second-floor, loft-style condominiums over retail space and rehabilitation of seven houses on Penn Avenue and North Fairmount Street in the city’s Garfield neighborhood has been approved by the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. The project will get $660,000 in Neighborhood Revitalization funds. The agency also approved $2 million for Peebles Square in Wilkinsburg. These funds will be used to build 12 new single-family detached three-bedroom homes and to rehabilitate eight existing owner-occupied homes and create a regional park.
Construction activity in the six-county Pittsburgh region increased substantially in November compared to the same month last year. Total new contracts issued reached $178.3 million, a 94 percent increase over the $92.1 million a year ago, according to the Research and Analytics unit of McGraw-Hill Construction. For the 11-month period, total contracts issued reached $2 billion, an 11 percent decline from $2.26 billion for the same period a year ago.
The management office of Station Square, South Side, has relocated to Suite 317 in the Landmark Building, which is on the opposite side from where it was formerly located, said Tom Schneck II, Station Square’s director of marketing.
James P. Kelly, Grubb & Ellis vice president, has been given the job of finding tenants for the Mon Valley Community Health Center in Monessen, since the current occupant, Southwestern Pennsylvania Human Services Inc., plans to relocate 200 of its employees into the former Montgomery Ward building in Charleroi.
Wells Real Estate Investment Trust II Inc. has selected Jeremy Kronman and Tom McDonald of CB Richard Ellis/Pittsburgh to market 2000 Park Lane, a seven-story office building it purchased in North Fayette. Computer Associates International Inc., former owner of the building, will lease about 25 percent of the 231,213-square-foot building, and Fisher Scientific Co. LLC occupies about 64 percent. Brad Heming of Jones Lang LaSalle represented the seller, and Jeff Gilder of Wells Real Estate Funds represented the buyer.
Several members of Holliday Fenoglio Fowler’s Pittsburgh office participated in the sale by Simon Property Group Inc. of Cheltenham Square, a 638,098-square-foot regional shopping center north of Philadelphia. Thor Equities LLC paid $71.3 million for the property, plus assumption of an existing $54.9 million bank loan, and Chris Turner and Claudia Steeb with John Pelusi, executive managing director and managing member, were involved.
An office building at 100 Commercial St., in the Bridgeville Industrial Park, Bridgeville, has been sold by Proud Mary LLC to Great Lakes Warranty Corp. for $700,000, according to a deed filed in the office of Allegheny County Recorder of Deeds.
— Contributor: Sam SpatterRon DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
Images and text copyright © 2004 by The Tribune-Review Publishing Co.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Temple members may face exodus
By Andrew Conte
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, December 23, 2005Sitting at center ice of the Penguins’ proposed new arena, Downtown’s only synagogue shouldn’t have to move for hockey again, Rabbi Stanley Savage says.
Beth Hamedrash Hagodol-Beth Jacob congregation has worshipped at the aqua-green building on Colwell Street since 1963, after the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority demolished a Washington Place synagogue for the Civic Arena project.It would be a sin if the city’s oldest Orthodox congregation had to relocate for another arena project, said Savage, who has lived in the temple’s first-floor apartment for 21 years.
The synagogue sits halfway between Centre Avenue and Fifth Avenue, where the Penguins want to place a new arena. A casino likely would be built, at least temporarily, in the Mellon Arena parking lots.
“I don’t want to leave here,” Savage said. “I love this place. I love this congregation. I don’t want them to give this place to a casino.”
Whether that would happen isn’t certain, but the synagogue and several other properties might need to relocate under a $1 billion redevelopment of the Lower Hill District announced Wednesday by the Penguins. The team would partner with Isle of Capri Casinos of Biloxi, Miss., and Nationwide Realty Investors of Columbus, Ohio.
If Isle of Capri can win the city’s casino license, the company would give $290 million for a new arena. But to make room for it and other amenities in the plan, the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority — which owns Mellon Arena — might need to obtain a row of privately held properties along Fifth Avenue.
The site includes the synagogue, law offices, a barbecue restaurant, a clothing store, and a few vacant buildings among the surface parking lots.
The synagogue is a “small gem,” said Nick Lane, an amateur Pittsburgh Jewish historian who leads bus tours around the city. It’s the last of more than 20 synagogues once located throughout the Hill District.
Organized in 1873, Beth Hamedrash Hagodol-Beth Jacob is the city’s oldest Orthodox congregation — but it’s also somewhat of an anomaly. Few Jews remain in the Hill District, and most of the 75 members drive to the synagogue on the Sabbath, in violation of Orthodox rules. The synagogue locks its parking lot on the Sabbath; members park on surrounding streets.
Mellon Arena — then the Civic Arena — was the “nail in the coffin” for the Hill District’s Jewish community, Lane said. Although the congregation has moved more than once, he wonders whether it could withstand another move.
“It is, in a funny kind of way, reiterating the mistake made when the Civic Arena went in,” he said. “You demolish something of value and replace it with something that has a much shorter lifespan of its own. Look at the Civic Arena and all the things destroyed to make it happen.”
It would be up to the SEA to obtain the land for the arena and to decide whether to use eminent domain, said David Morehouse, the Penguins’ senior consultant. The arena could be moved to another site on land that the SEA already owns, he said, or the agency could develop land around the synagogue.
“But that would significantly impact the overall development,” Morehouse said.
SEA officials could not be reached for comment.
Separately, the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation determined yesterday that the 44-year-old Mellon Arena is six years too young to qualify for federal, state or city historic designation, said Al Tannler, a research historian.
The Penguins’ proposal also could include buying a former school building and other property around Epiphany Church, Uptown.
“The Pittsburgh Penguins have not talked to the diocese for a few years now,” said the Rev. Ronald Lengwin, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. “We would want to sit down and just talk.”
Not everyone on the Fifth Avenue blocks — and not everyone in the Jewish congregation — opposes the arena project.
Julian Elbling’s family has run a men’s clothing store on Fifth Avenue since 1927. He’s a member of Beth Hamedrash Hagodol-Beth Jacob congregation. For the right price and a new location nearby, Elbling said, he would move his store.
The synagogue needs to be as willing, he said.
“They have to be flexible and look to the future of the neighborhood here,” Elbling said. “They moved twice before.”
The president of the congregation, Ira Frank, who owns the National Fabrics shop across Fifth Avenue, said he doesn’t want the synagogue to move but would listen to the Penguins’ offer.
The team met with him about three years ago when it first proposed building a new arena on the block. Frank said they have not been in contact or made an offer since.
It would be the congregation’s decision whether to relocate.
“The bottom line is, we’re here, we’re very viable and we plan on existing,” Frank said. “It’s all speculation. Are we willing to listen to them and talk? Absolutely. Are we happy about it? No.”
Savage said he wants to stay. The rabbi sees beauty in the building’s mix of the past and present. Despite its contemporary architecture and stained-glass windows, the synagogue’s ark came from Europe and dates to 1894. Its wooden pews were saved from the Washington Place synagogue.
“How do they want to get rid of this?” Savage said, standing in the main sanctuary. “It’s so beautiful.”
Andrew Conte can be reached at aconte@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7835