Category Archive: Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Wilkinsburg housing project gains approval
By Sam Spatter
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, September 29, 2005Another project to improve the housing inventory in Wilkinsburg has been approved by the Allegheny County Redevelopment Authority.
The authority on Wednesday authorized the county’s Economic Development Department to move ahead on the Peebles (Street) Square project, which involves the rehabilitation or construction of 12 to 14 houses in that area.
In July, Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation joined with Wilkinsburg Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, in a separate project to revitalize housing in a six-block area near St. James Church, known as Hamnett Place neighborhood.
For the Peebles project, the authority will seek $1 million in acquisition funds from the state and apply to the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency for about $2 million to assist the developer, Action-Housing, in the project.
“About four of the houses are occupied, two by owners, but the rest are either vacant or boarded-up, or the site vacant,” said Dennis Davin, the Economic Development Department’s executive director.
The overall cost of the program is about $5.6 million, with new houses selling for about $75,000 and rehabilitated houses, $65,000. The authority plans to provide a second mortgage of about $20,000, which is paid only upon resale of the house, he said.
The Hamnett Place neighborhood project includes rehabilitation of six abandoned buildings along Jeanette Street to create opportunities for new single-family housing.
Allegheny County is providing $500,000 for the project, and the History & Landmarks Foundation, and the state, will provide matching funds.
Cathy McCollom, the foundation’s chief programs officer, estimates the cost to redo the initial six properties could range between $90,000 and $130,000 per unit.
Sam Spatter can be reached at sspatter@tribweb.com.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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St. Paul’s Cathedral prepares for facelift
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Saturday, September 10, 2005On the threshold of its 100th birthday, St. Paul’s Cathedral in Oakland is due for a major restoration.
The landmark church building, located along Fifth Avenue on a block bordered by North Craig and North Dithridge streets, is to undergo a multimillion-dollar rehabilitation expected to be completed in time for its anniversary celebration in October 2006.“This is the mother church for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, and hopefully this work will help preserve its legacy for hundreds of years to come,” said the Rev. Donald P. Breier, rector and pastor.
“This has to be done to preserve the structural integrity of the building as a safety factor, not only for those who worship at the cathedral, but for people passing by.”
A Sunday church bulletin for St. Paul’s approximately 1,700 member families explained the work will include reinforcing the two front towers of the Flemish Gothic style cathedral with new steel interior girders, rebuilding four side towers and repairing or replacing exterior stonework.
In addition, the entire building will be re-pointed and cleaned.
Breier said he hopes the work will begin in October and be complete within seven months.
Normal church operations won’t be affected, he said.
Preliminary cost estimates for the project range from $5 million to $10 million, but aren’t final, he said.
A planned fundraising campaign is temporarily on hold because of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast.
“Funding will be delayed for a time so that people’s focus can be on the tremendous need for hurricane victims,” Breier said.
Cathy McCollom, program officer for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, said the foundation designated the cathedral a historic landmark in 1975.
“The twin spires of St. Paul’s Cathedral are prominent, familiar objects on the Oakland skyline, establishing the eastern part of the neighborhood,” McCollom said.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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From landmark to Wal-Mart
By Rick Wills
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, September 8, 2005Dixmont State Hospital finally will meet the wrecking ball, more than two decades after the Kilbuck facility shut its doors, officials said Wednesday.
Demolition of the hospital overlooking Route 65 is expected to start within a few weeks to make way for a $28 million Wal-Mart Supercenter. The work is expected to stretch over several weeks, with construction starting in December and the discount store slated to open in May 2007, said Tony Chammas, a partner at ASC Development Inc., of Emsworth.Ralph Stroyne, of Kilbuck, bought the 407-acre Dixmont site for $757,000 in January 1999. ASC is to close this week with Stroyne on a deal reached three years ago to buy 75 acres of the site for the Wal-Mart.
Officials declined to disclose ASC’s purchase price. Stroyne could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Social reformer Dorothea Lynde Dix opened Dixmont in 1859, and the state Department of Public Welfare closed the facility in 1984 amid state budget cuts.
“Dixmont’s history is very sad, but reflects changes in ways mentally ill patients are treated,” said Christine Davis, an urban archaeologist and president of Chris Davis Consultants in Verona.
Once declared a historic landmark, the hospital’s 24 buildings, garages and dumps are crumbling, a target for vandals and a party center for young revelers.
“It’s important that people know what is there,” Davis said. “Once the Wal-Mart is there, no one will be aware of what was there.”
At its height, Dixmont cared for more than 1,000 patients. In its first century, the facility was operated according to Dix’s philosophy of keeping patients active and self sufficient. Patients spent their time tending to gardens and livestock, making shoes and engaging in a variety of sports and recreational activities.
Rick Wills can be reached at rwills@tribweb.com or (724) 779-7123.
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Legacy of architect Henry Hornbostel lives on
By Kurt Shaw
TRIBUNE-REVIEW ART CRITIC
Sunday, August 21, 2005Even a scant overview of the history of Pittsburgh architecture would not be complete without the mention of Henry Hornbostel, whose designs range from Downtown landmarks such as the Grant Building and the City-County Building to homes heading east from Squirrel Hill to Monroeville.
Hornbostel’s stamp on Pittsburgh’s urban sprawl is so ubiquitous that even contemporary architects like Michael Dennis, principal of Michael Dennis & Associates of Boston and professor of architecture at MIT, couldn’t ignore Hornbostel’s influence when he set about designing the newer half of Carnegie Mellon University’s campus in 1987.
Recently completed, the new half looks much like the old half, which was designed by Hornbostel in 1904 and was the winning entry in the Carnegie Technical Schools Competition, right down to the cream-colored brick exterior.
“He was trying to compliment rather than rival Hornbostel, I’m sure,” says Walter C. Kidney, author of the architect’s first and only monograph, “Henry Hornbostel: An Architect’s Master Touch” ($49.95, published by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation in cooperation with Roberts Rinehart Publishers).
An architectural historian with the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, Kidney says that Hornbostel “was much more original than most.”
“I’d say Hornbostel and Ernest Flagg were the two big original thinkers of the American Renaissance,” Kidney says. “They were sort of in it, but not all the way in it. They did what they felt like doing.”
Perhaps of all his designs, the original Carnegie Tech campus proves this the most.
On the outside, the classically styled exteriors made of cream-colored brick and white terra-cotta trim are every bit the perfect example of the American Renaissance period. But inside, visitors will find that the architect took some unusual liberties — such as dramatic vaulted ceilings, curved staircases clad in Guastavino tile, industrial-looking archways made of concrete and steel, as well as railings made of steel pipe.
Though the use of these materials undoubtedly references the purpose of the institution as a training ground for industry, still, to this day, the combination of these materials into a stunning Beaux-Arts-inspired style has a commanding yet graceful presence.
“He was sort of playing around with the technical theme, yet using a lot of elegance, too,” Kidney says.
The College of Fine Arts building, completed in 1916, is even more over-the-top with exterior niches carved with specific architectural orders and motifs in mind. Inside, more art historical references abound. Specifically, the floors in the vestibule and on the first floor have inlaid marble tile that features the footprints of some the world’s greatest buildings, such as Michelangelo’s St. Peter’s, Chartres Cathedral, the Parthenon and the Temple of Horus at Edfu.
A magnificently painted ceiling depicts those buildings and more as well as portraits of many of the most influential architects, artists, composers, writers throughout history.
Just as over the top was the architect himself.
A flamboyant figure, Hornbostel was born in 1867, the same year as the equally flamboyant Frank Lloyd Wright. Like Wright, he was a snappy dresser, oftentimes spotted wearing red string ties (rumored to have been fashioned from ladies’ silk garters) below a proud chin that sported a dramatic Vandyke beard.
His affinity with Wright stops there, however. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Hornbostel was classically trained at Columbia University in New York City and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Though he had designed a number of buildings, even bridges, before winning the 1904 Carnegie Technical Schools Competition, it was his subsequent move to Pittsburgh that would begin the most ambitious part of his career.
As the founder of the Carnegie Tech Department of Architecture and as architect for numerous prominent buildings around town such as the Temple Rodef Shalom (1904), the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall (1907), Webster Hall hotel (1926) and the City-County Building (1915-1917, with Edward B. Lee), Hornbostel played an important role in shaping Pittsburgh’s architectural image in the first decades of the 20th century.
In addition to his role as the head of Carnegie Tech’s Department of Architecture, he also had a private practice in Pittsburgh, taught at Columbia University in New York and was at various times a partner in the New York firms of Howell, Stokes & Hornbostel; Wood, Palmer & Hornbostel; Palmer & Hornbostel; and Palmer, Hornbostel & Jones.
Although the bulk of his practice centered in and around Pittsburgh — where the 110 works he designed there represent roughly about half of his total output — Hornbostel executed projects throughout the country. They include several bridges in New York City, government buildings in Albany, N.Y., Hartford, Conn., and Oakland, Calif., as well as the campus plans of the University of California at Berkeley, Emory University in Atlanta, and Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
However, even with such ambitious projects coming to fruition, especially in the area of designing buildings for academic institutions, the architect’s greatest, most ambitious, campus plan was never realized.
Designed for the Western University of Pennsylvania in 1908, the same year the school changed its name to the University of Pittsburgh, The Acropolis Plan, according to “Pittsburgh: An urban portrait” by Franklin Toker, called for the construction of a series of buildings across the 43 acres of hillside, facing southeast toward Forbes and Fifth avenues.
The award-winning design chosen from a national competition that garnered 61 entries was dubbed the Acropolis Plan after the Pittsburgh Leader newspaper compared it to the Athenian Acropolis when it was still intact.
Proposed as an ongoing evolutionary plan of buildings designed in the Classical style, which allowed for the university to grow and add buildings as it would see fit, it included plans for a 1,000 ft. subterranean escalator that would run right up its center to reach the climaxing temple that topped it.
A wildly ambitious idea, but as Toker, a University of Pittsburgh professor of the history of art and architecture, contends, “Hornbostel had already proved his mettle with the Carnegie technical school, plus he had come in second with the competition for University of California at Berkeley, so he knew what people wanted in a campus.”
The cornerstone for the first building to be built — the School of Mines — was laid in October 1908, and four more built between then and 1920. But ironically, the project was halted with the discovery of previously cleared and covered over coal mines, some of which were still smoldering with fire.
By 1920, under the direction of Chancellor John Bowman, the university scrapped much of Hornbostel’s plans in favor of the Cathedral of Learning. Conceived to be to be the second tallest skyscraper in the world after the Woolworth Building, the then so called “Tower of Learning” would be designed, not by Hornbostel, but instead one of the foremost Gothic architects of the time — Philadelphian Charles Klauder.
“Plan A and Plan B have an enormous amount in common in terms of prestige,” Toker says. “They were both products of the huge over-arching vision and confidence that Pittsburgh had of itself 100 years ago.”
Today, of the buildings there that Hornbostel originally designed, only two remain. That and the question, as Toker so perfectly puts it: “Would Hornbostel’s Acropolis have been the world’s most gigantic white elephant or would it have made the University famous around the globe for this stunning outlay of buildings?”
Stunning is a word that can be applied to many of Hornbostels’s projects, not the least of which is the majestic Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland, which is loosely based on the Mausoleum Halicarnassus in Southwest Turkey, and the ornate Temple Rodef Shalom in Shadyside, which has the largest Guastavino tile dome in the world. The same can be said of the various private residences he designed, most of which still exist.
Originally designed for Morris Friedman, president of Reliance Mortgage Co., in 1925, the home is now that of Dr. Michael Nieland, a dermatopathologist who has owned it since 1976.
Even though he has lived there nearly 30 years, Nieland’s enthusiasm for the house hasn’t waned.
“The home is endlessly interesting from my point of view in terms of all of its various nooks and crannies,” he says.
An art and antique collector, Nieland says the possibilities of placing art and decorative objects within the various display spaces and built-in cabinetry are seemingly endless. That and special features like an indoor fountain on the first floor and a second-floor library make this house especially unique.
But even with all of that, what attracted Nieland to the home initially was the entranceway, which has a large iron door that opens into a vestibule made of carved limestone. Inside the vestibule, an arched inner door is filled with etched glass that has an ornate Art Nouveau pattern. Beyond that door is the entrance hall.
“The front entrance hall is long, so when you enter the house it’s not immediately apparent what the floor plan of the house is so there is a little bit of mystery when you come in,” Nieland says.
Nieland’s favorite aspect of the inside of the home is the layout of the various rooms, which gradually unfolds to the visitor as one moves through it, further adding to that sense of mystery.
Even on a small scale such as this, the mystery and drama that Hornbostel, who died in 1961, was able to create is why his legacy continues to live on and why he will no doubt continue to long be considered one of Pittsburgh’s most important and influential architects.
Kurt Shaw can be reached at kshaw@tribweb.com or .
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Hopes rise on fallen ceiling damage
By Bill Zlatos
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, August 16, 2005Damage from the collapse of the Renaissance-style ceiling at Hartwood Mansion might be less than feared, the manager of the county-owned facility said Monday.
“I think we can salvage more than we originally thought even though things look awful right now,” said Sylvia Easler, recreation superintendent for county parks and manager of the Hartwood Acres mansion. The 629-acre park lies along Saxonburg Boulevard in Hampton and Indiana townships.
Several tons of plaster fell Thursday from the ceiling of the Great Hall of the mansion, built in 1929 for John and Mary Flinn Lawrence. Her father was state Sen. William Flinn, who owned the city’s largest construction firm in the late 19th century.
Many of the furnishings, whether damaged or unscathed, are now stored in the dining room. There lie legless English chairs from the 19th century, two matching game tables valued at a total of $17,000, and a brass chandelier from Flinn’s home in Highland Park.
“We have some excellent craftsmen in the county,” Easler said. “They’re optimistic they can help with a lot of this.”
County officials and an insurance adjuster still have not compiled a damage estimate.
Inside the Great Hall, falling plaster damaged the corner of a hand-carved oak mantel, made in 1610 and removed from an English castle. A damask, ball-and-claw-foot couch from the 1800s stands intact under a huge sheet of plaster while a needlepoint settee worth $5,000 is flattened.
Perhaps the room’s prize, an 1870 Bijar Persian rug, was rolled up and safe from the debris. With 1,000 knots per square inch, the rug is worth $75,000.
Originally, officials from Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation cited moisture as a possible cause for the collapse in the 54- by 23-foot room. Now, Easler said, the method used to hang the inch-thick plaster ceiling is considered a suspect.
“The general consensus was that it’s amazing that it lasted this long,” she said. “There was no additional reinforcement besides the nails.”
The accident forced the cancellation of mansion tours and indoor weddings. Outdoor weddings will still be held on the grounds.
Easler said two couples who had indoor weddings scheduled for this weekend have found other sites.
“The community rallied around and were very supportive of trying to find another place,” she said.
Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7828.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Architecture detectives on the case
By Violet Law
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, August 14, 2005Moisture may be the culprit that caused the ornate plaster ceiling in the Great Hall of Hartwood Mansion to come crashing down, a restoration expert said Saturday.
Tom Keffer and other specialists at Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation plan to play architecture sleuths today to determine what caused the collapse. Keffer said yesterday that the high humidity that has prevailed this summer could be a culprit.
“I won’t know that for sure until I get out there,” said Keffer, the preservation group’s construction manager and superintendent of properties maintenance. “I may not know even at first glance.”
The Great Hall, about half the size of a football field, has been buried under several tons of plaster that crashed from the ceiling Thursday afternoon — narrowly missing a tour group that had just passed through.
While it is not unusual to see caved-in ceilings in dilapidated historical homes, Keffer said, “I haven’t seen anything like that in something as diligently maintained” as Hartwood Mansion.
The stately Tudor built in 1929 was purchased by the Allegheny County Parks Department in 1969 and is a popular venue for concerts, theater and weddings. The 629-acre property straddles Hampton and Indiana townships along Saxonburg Boulevard.
All scheduled events inside the mansion have been canceled.
Last spring, Keffer helped reglaze 37 steel-framed casement windows in the cottage section of the mansion and on the first floor. He saw no signs of problems in the Great Hall ceiling, which contained hand-cast motifs of thistles and flowers.
Salvage and restoration work is to begin as soon as possible. Among the items damaged by falling plaster were a chandelier, a 1901 mahogany Steinway grand piano, an Aeolian pipe organ, early Georgian gaming tables and a large Flemish tapestry.
“We’re going to decipher what we can repair and what is beyond repair,” said mansion Manager Sylvia Easler.
Friends of Hartwood, a volunteer group dedicated to rehabilitating the mansion, plans to raise money to help restore the antique furniture and any damage not covered by insurance, said Amber Bierkan, the group’s president.
Restoring the Renaissance-style ceiling to its original grandeur could be time-consuming, Keffer said. He plans to take close-up shots of the debris and collect a small sample of the plaster for analysis.
“Hopefully we can find enough of the medallion pieces to duplicate them,” said Keffer. “I’m almost scared to look.”
For Easler, who has overseen the mansion for 20 years, it might be as if the sky has fallen on her head.
“I just love this house. Everyone here does,” Easler said. “We are kind of consoling each other.”
Violet Law can be reached at vlaw@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7884
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Historic landmark in Fayette for sale
By By Judy Kroeger
Daily Courier
Saturday, August 6, 2005The historic Isaac Meason House is for sale.
Owners Terry and Diane Kriss have given up the fight to have the acreage surrounding the 1802 mansion along Route 119 in Dunbar Township rezoned agricultural.
Terry Kriss recently took out a half page advertisement in “Maine Antique Digest” offering the house for $750,000.
“This is not a joke,” the ad reads, and specifies that Kriss, who restores antique cars for a living, would trade “for quality Corvettes, Mustangs and muscle cars.”
Kriss does not believe that anyone wants to purchase the property, which consists of four acres surrounded by an auto body shop, Laurel Mall and a strip mine, and is counting on someone wealthy enough to dismantle the 20-room house, brick by brick, window pane by window pane and reassemble it somewhere else.
This is not the first time he has taken an unconventional route to sell the house. In 2003, he marketed it on the Internet auction site eBay, but no buyers met the $1 million minimum bid.
Kriss has tried to attract preservationists to the landmark, which he opens to tours by appointment, but has given up on saving it at its present site, hemmed in by development that makes the mansion hard to see and access.
The house is surrounded by commercial property, with a 15-foot driveway as the only access.
“I am not even allowed to have a business sign at the bottom of my driveway,” he said.
Kriss’ father, Peter Kriss, bought the house in 1977. Terry and Diane have spent more than $250,000 to restore it and an additional $100,000 in legal fees to preserve the site from encroaching businesses and a cellular phone tower. They were successful in stopping the tower’s erection.
The zoning is another matter.
“The Kriss property is zoned A-1, agricultural,” said Tammy Shell, executive director of the Fayette County Office of Planning, Zoning and Community Development. “The properties around it are zoned B-1, general business. The Kriss property is about 4 acres and the surrounding properties are about 30.”
The first request for the business rezoning was in 1968 and some of the land owners asked in 2000 to have their property rezoned general business, he said. The zoning hearing board and the county commissioners granted that request.
Shell said that the revised zoning maps under the county’s new comprehensive plan are not yet available. However, she said that any changes in zoning will likely not affect the property around the Meason House.
“The commissioners are working on the text, but anything legally operating, Cellurale’s Auto Shop, for example, will be permitted, even if the zoning has changed.”
Kriss has given up. “I have fought for 29 years. I’m 49. This house has taken all my adult life. All I want to do is save the house. I have shopped the home to be dismantled and moved. I’m saving the house. It will be rebuilt somewhere.”
He approached Commissioner Joseph Hardy, who has bankrolled a number of restoration efforts.
“I got no response,” Kriss said.
Long the home’s biggest advocate, Kriss now characterizes himself as “its biggest threat. It’s hard to say, but I want to move forward with my life.”
Two years ago, Kriss was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He’s now disease-free.
“I beat it. I’m still here, but the problems are still here. It’s been a real privilege to live here, but there’s pain and grief and an embarrassment to the historic and preservation community.”
Lynda Waggoner is vice president of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and director of Fallingwater. She understands Kriss’ frustration.
“We’ve been involved with trying to preserve the Meason House for a number of years,” Waggoner said, “but the Pennsylvania Conservancy is more interested in nature conservation. Fallingwater is an example of man living in harmony with nature.”
But she has tried to help preserve the Meason House. “We’ve been looking for a win-win situation, but we haven’t been able to make it work.”
As for moving the house to erect it somewhere else, “Houses are moved all the time, even castles at the turn of the century,” Waggoner said. “But, I think it would be a shame for Fayette County to lose this building.”
Kriss estimates that dismantling the house and rebuilding it in a more accessible location will cost between $2 and $4 million. “Even out of its historical context, it would be an instant tourist attraction.”
The mansion and its outbuildings were built for Isaac Meason, who, in 1791, built the first commercially successful iron furnace and forge west of the Alleghenies. He also built the world’s first iron suspension bridge and owned 20,000 acres, including all of New Haven, which is now a part of Connellsville.
The Meason House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. Kriss has compiled a history of the house and its significance to local and national history at www.isaacmeasonmansion.com, which also includes information about the sale.
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Baltimore-style revitalization eyed for Pittsburgh
By Sam Spatter
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, August 4, 2005Pittsburgh leaders should look to the southeast for a guide on redeveloping Fifth and Forbes avenues Downtown, the president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation said Wednesday.
The Murphy administration’s plan to enlist one developer hasn’t worked, said landmarks President Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., so the city should consider copying Baltimore’s continuing effort that has revitalized part of its downtown.
“If that single developer steps forward, that would be fine,” Ziegler told members of the Pittsburgh Rotary Club. “But so far, it has been an elusive goal. We believe the Baltimore plan that worked there very well should be examined again.”
Ziegler referred to Baltimore’s $800 million project driven mainly by private investment and fueled by historic preservation tax credits that has renewed a 26-block area over the past several years.
The city packaged buildings, determined specified uses and quality levels, and offered the packages on the open market, he said.
If Pittsburgh officials adopted a similar plan, national and local developers might be persuaded to take a look at redeveloping pieces of Fifth and Forbes, Ziegler said.
Three developers have considered becoming the master developer for Fifth-Forbes, only to walk away. Dranoff Properties of Philadelphia is the most recent.
Ziegler said he’s been approached by at least two local developers interested in Downtown redevelopment, but not the entire Fifth-Forbes corridor.
“If a major developer can’t be located, then obviously other options would have to be considered,” said Herb Burger, who is leading a private effort to revitalize the corridor. “But I believe a major developer will participate in Downtown renewal.”
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, founded in 1964, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preservation.
One of its major successes is Station Square on the Monongahela River on the South Side. The entertainment and office complex was developed in a former Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad warehouse site.
The redevelopment, which began in 1975, owes much of that success to nearly $12 million in private money provided through the Allegheny Foundation, Ziegler said. Richard M. Scaife, owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, chairs the Allegheny Foundation.
Ziegler said that many of the Downtown developments subsidized by taxpayer money — such as the Lazarus-Macy’s department store and the conversion of the former Mellon Bank headquarters into a Lord & Taylor store — have failed.
He said tax credits have helped finance the Heinz Lofts on the North Side and the Cork Factory redevelopment in the Strip District. Tax credits also could help transform the former Nabisco plant into housing in East Liberty.
Staff writer Ron DaParma contributed to this report.
Sam Spatter can be reached at sspatter@tribweb.com or .
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review