Category Archive: Pittsburgh Tribune Review
-
Windows to the spirit
By Kellie B. Gormly
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, October 28, 2003When the Rev. Ron Fleming strolls through his sanctuary at Mifflin Avenue Methodist Church, his 1924 stained-glass display of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane sparkles like a brilliant kaleidoscope in the afternoon sun.
“When the afternoon sun comes through, it is just spectacular. It lights the whole sanctuary,” says Fleming, 52, pastor of the congregation of about 400 members in Wilkinsburg. He says he is reminded of the center of his Christian faith as he views the pre-crucifixion garden display and the towering stained-glass resurrection scene, which looms to the right of the pulpit as he preaches.This church’s opalescent works by J. Horace Rudy, a stained-glass wizard from 1890s Pittsburgh, are among four displays featured on Sunday’s Stained Glass Masterpieces 1890-1930 bus tour. The three-hour tour — sponsored jointly by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Solutions program as part of their regular city architectural tours — will escort participants to the four landmark buildings that contain some of the city’s ornamental and stained-glass crowning glories.
Al Tannler, historical collections director for the foundation, will conduct the tour and explain the history behind the sparkle of the stained-glass windows — but all people have to do, he says, is come and look to appreciate the creations.
“Anything I can say to these people is nothing compared to what they’re going to see,” he says. “These are real buildings and real places.
“(Stained glass) is a living art because of the way the light affects the colors and the shapes and what you see.”
Tannler’s tour has another stop in Wilkinsburg: St. James Roman Catholic Church, which has glass works from Boston artist Harry Wright Goodhue and The D’Ascenzo Studios in Philadelphia. The other two churches are in Shadyside: Calvary Episcopal Church, which has glass from several artists including Charles J. Connick of Boston, and First United Methodist Church, whose glass artists are Ford and Brooks of Boston and Edward P. Sperry of Tiffany Glass & Decorating Co. in New York.
Connick, who grew up in Pittsburgh and created the Heinz Chapel glass, recalled “the radiant splendors that struck me dumb” when he first entered Rudy’s stained glass studio in 1894, Tannler says.
Rudy and Connick are examples of brilliant opalescent glass artists from Pittsburgh, where some of the best glass from the time was made, Tannler says.
“People tend to not realize that what they have in their back yard is good and is of value,” he says. “(Stained glass) is really important stuff.”
Fleming has a similar feeling of awe about Rudy’s work, almost 80 years later.
“The hours and meticulous nature of this just amazes me,” he says, running his hand over the aging but still shining glass.
Sparkling, historical glass displays not only have a significant role in the city’s past, but they provide delightful eye candy, Tannler says.
“This is a very vibrant medium. It’s not static,” he says. “You’re not looking at something that is just on the wall; you’re looking at something that interacts with the light and changes. It really is showing how two generations used this ancient product of sand and ash colored by minerals and created this extraordinary artwork.”
Kellie B. Gormly can be reached at kgormly@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7824.
-
Banish the boring bridge paint
By Dave Copeland
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, October 6, 2003It was an honest mistake: In one of the first dozen or so articles I wrote for the Trib, I inadvertently called the Roberto Clemente Bridge the “Sixth Street Bridge.”
Twenty or so phone calls and several e-mail messages later, I had learned a valuable lesson about my new hometown: Pittsburghers take their sports heroes and their bridges very seriously.
Nearly four years later, I know all of the region’s landmark bridges (although I still don’t know why Pittsburghers have a fear of crossing bridges). But I still think my mistake is forgivable, given the fact that seemingly every bridge in the region is painted the same shade of Majestic Pee Yellow.
Oh wait, that’s Aztec Yellow, according to City Councilman William Peduto, who says he’s as bored with the color as the rest of us. So much so that he fired off a letter to Gov. Ed Rendell when work was completed on the 16th Street Bridge and it was painted — yawn — Aztec Yellow.
Peduto is hoping that someone will listen to a recommendation made by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation a few years ago to think about painting the bridges different colors. He’s still waiting for a response from Rendell. In the meantime, he’s come up with an idea to get the ball rolling.
“The Roberto Clemente Bridge, when it’s lit up at night, is beautiful from almost any angle in the city,” Peduto said. “Then you have the other two behind it, and they just look dull.”
So Peduto wants to find corporate sponsors who will foot the bill for upgrading the Seventh and Ninth street bridges.
He’d like to see the Seventh Street Bridge — which connects the Andy Warhol Museum on the North Side to the Golden Triangle’s Cultural District — painted ultraviolet purple and named after the artist. The Ninth Street Bridge — which links the environmentally friendly convention center with the Allegheny Valley — could be painted green and named after noted environmentalist Rachel Carson.
“You’re looking at three people who have had a great impact on the region. One in sports, one in art and one in science and literature,” Peduto said.
Unlike many people in the region, Peduto sees the bridges as important pieces of the region’s history — not the barriers that have been safely protecting the North Hills from the South Hills (and vice versa) for several generations.
“We have so many opportunities to use our bridges to make the region unique,” Peduto said. “Or we can just ignore them and keep painting them Aztec Yellow.”
Dave Copeland is a reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He can be reached at dcopeland@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7922.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
-
General’s funeral will be re-enacted
By Meredith Polley
For the Tribune-Review
Sunday, August 10, 2003To commemorate the bicentennial of Gen. John Neville’s death, visitors to the Neville House in Collier today can experience a closed-coffin re-enactment of a 19th-century funeral.
The Rev. Richard Davies, of Old St. Luke’s Church, which Neville helped found, will perform a service at 2 p.m. in the parlor of the mansion known as Woodville Plantation.If weather permits, costumed soldiers and a drummer from the Fort Pitt Royal Americans then will carry the coffin outdoors to a spot where a number of modern dignitaries will assist in recreating the general’s funeral.
They include historian Ron Carlisle, author of “The Story of Woodville;” U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair; and Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation Executive Director Louise Sturgess.
The Neville House Associates volunteers who run the house planned the event to draw attention to Neville’s career and Woodville’s history.
“We want to show people what funerals of the day were like,” said Neville House President Nancy Bishop. “We know it’s unusual, but mostly because it is the 200th anniversary of Neville’s death, we knew we had to do something.”Neville, who died at 72 on July 29, 1803, served in the Revolutionary War, was a commandant at Fort Pitt and a friend of George Washington. The local tax collector, Neville lost his later residence, called Bower Hill, when angry farmers protested the excise tax on whiskey in 1794.
Visitors who attend the service may be asked to read eulogies to make the funeral authentic and interactive.
The event will include the dedication of a memorial shelter on the grounds built to house three original Neville tombstones — including those of Neville and his wife. The house will be open from 1 to 4 p.m. All events are free.
Mari Jean Ferguson, a Neville House docent and professor at La Roche College, showed off a collection of artifacts Thursday.
Ferguson said she hopes the services will be inspirational.
“It helps to have our heroes,” she said. “To know that others overcame many challenges in the past can inspire us today, and the connections people make with history can show that we are one big family
-
How about a store less ritzy Downtown?
y Mike Seate
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, August 4, 2003You can’t help feeling sorry for our city over the imminent closing of Downtown’s 3-year-old Lord & Taylor department store. Sure, the pundits with their “told-you-so’s” are right: It was silly to throw taxpayer money at the store in the belief that downtown Pittsburgh could support four upscale department stores.
As a shopping hub, Downtown peaked when steel was the undisputed king.The Murphy administration and the city Urban Redevelopment Authority — which gave an $11.75 million loan to May Department Stores Co., Lord & Taylor’s St. Louis-based parent company — had to at least suspect we were already pretty well covered in the $90 umbrella department by Kaufmann’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. Then came Lord & Taylor and, with a loan of its own, a Lazarus followed.
Today, the city is in a mad scramble to fill the soon-to-be-vacant store with another retailer better suited to Fox Chapel or Sewickley than the central business district of an ailing mid-sized city like our own. It’s time to face reality.
Downtown Pittsburgh is like hundreds of other middle-income cities where discount retailers — Wal-Mart, Kmart, maybe a Target — serve poorer, urban consumers while well-to-do shoppers patronize upscale shops in the suburbs.
Don’t lump me in with the urban-bashers who are laughing in their suburban malls over this fiasco. I wanted to see Lord & Taylor help turn Downtown’s grimy Fifth Avenue business corridor around. As someone who grew up shopping in the Downtown, I’ve had a hard time watching the area’s decline over the past 30 years.
I’m sure Mayor Murphy’s team and the URA must have had a vision of returning Downtown to its former glory. You can visit the Carnegie Library in Oakland and see vivid images of a city most of us wouldn’t recognize: streets full of well-dressed white people in furs, suits and fedoras. It more closely resembles a scene from a Fred Astaire movie than the Downtown we know today.
It seems painfully clear to nearly everyone — except city officials — that those shoppers aren’t interested in coming to Downtown in significant numbers. Not when they can shop with free parking, no weather and — let’s face it — fewer poor people and people of color out in the ‘burbs. That doesn’t mean Downtown has to become a sea of plywood-covered windows and “Mookie’s House Of Bling-Bling” jewelry shops.
Me’Shawn Beverly, of the Strip District, was shopping Downtown on Friday. This single mother of three said the Burlington Coat Factory on Smithfield Street is the type of store — reasonably priced, that is — that families like hers need to see more of Downtown.
Beverly, a domestic worker, says she visited Lord & Taylor only once, “to check things out when they first opened.” She was a more frequent visitor than others I spoke with — including some who thought the regal-looking building still housed a bank.
“I still don’t get why there’s no grocery store or a T.J. Maxx down here like up at Waterworks. Get us a grocery store, and I won’t be catching jitneys to the South Side every Saturday,” Beverly said angrily.
I hope she and others will say that loud enough and often enough that someone in city government will listen.
Mike Seate is a staff writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He can be reached at (412) 320-7845 or e-mail him at mseate@tribweb.com
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
-
Lord & Taylor: Sophistry’s ‘rewards’
Sunday, August 3, 2003
Ah, the “fruits” of government attempting to command the marketplace.
The woefully underperforming, heavily taxpayer-subsidized Lord & Taylor department store in downtown Pittsburgh will be “sold” or closed. It’s part of parent May Department Stores’ restructuring that will shed dozens of outlets in 15 states.
As with its more heavily taxpayer-subsidized Federated Department Stores’ kin — Lazarus, a few blocks away — Lord & Taylor, which opened just three Novembers ago, is a dud. Customers have offered little assistance in the bottom-line department.
Sales last year were nearly $26 million below the threshold required for May to pay back the nearly $12 million public subsidy. A handout was the deciding factor in opening Lord & Taylor, as it was with the more than 60 percent taxpayer-underwritten Lazarus store. The administration of Mayor Tom Murphy attempted to artificially create a market where, as sales have proven, none existed.
Contractually, Lazarus can walk away from its store with little or no liability as early as this fall. Lord & Taylor, if it doesn’t repay the loan by buying out its contract, could do the same in 2005. No problem, Murphyites contend, we’ll simply find new tenants. Only to fail again, as the Law of Command Economics dictates.
This isn’t “economic development.” But it is delusive sophism, the primary instrument by which the few have managed to plunder the many by persuading the victims that they are being robbed for their own benefit.
This despicable behavior is Tom Murphy’s real legacy. And Pittsburgh’s curse.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
-
Foundation’s goals come to fruition after parting with Station Square
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Sunday, August 3, 2003A group of grade-school students ambles down a residential street, looking and learning about the buildings. At times, they stop to draw sketches of the decorative features. A crew of workers restore a historic building, a religious property or former business. A writer toils on a new book about a segment of the region’s architectural history.
The number and scope of these kinds of activities in the Pittsburgh area have increased, thanks, in part, to a $25 million fund established nine years ago. The driving force behind these activities and the fund is the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, a local preservationist organization.
” Rather than putting our assets behind mortgages for more new buildings, we are putting those assets to work in historic preservation and our other activities,” said Arthur P. Ziegler, president of the nonprofit foundation.
That is the course adopted by the foundation since 1994 — the year it sold the last of its holdings at Station Square, the popular entertainment, retail, entertainment complex on the South Side.
” I think it was the right thing to do,” Ziegler said of the sale of the 52-acre property to a partnership of developer Forest City Enterprises Inc. and Promise Companies Inc., Memphis, then owner of Harrah’s Casinos.
Forest City, a prominent Cleveland-based development company, has since taken full control of Station Square. It has continued to enhance the complex, committing $70 million to an expansion that added a Hard Rock Cafe and other restaurants, retail shops and amenities.
At the same time, the 39-year-old foundation has followed a script written by Ziegler and others — placing funds from the Station Square sale into an endowment to support restoration of historic inner-city neighborhoods, preserve architecturally significant buildings and provide educational programs.
” No one can do an historic tour of the South Side better than History & Landmarks,” said Lola O’Dea, director of services for the Brashear Association, a community services organization in that city neighborhood.
O’Dea said the foundation is a valuable partner in the association’s Discover South Side program, and she calls its offerings “informative, fun and exciting.”
In July, the foundation participated in two separate events with a group of school-aged children: one, a walking tour to view neighborhood buildings, including the Morning Glory Inn bed-and-breakfast; and the other, a field trip to the South Side Works, a major mixed-use development now being built between East Carson Street and the Monongahela River.
Such tours are part of an expanded group of education programs sponsored by the foundation that touch thousands each year.
” I would give them an A double plus just for wanting to make a difference,” said Rosemary Moriarty, principal of the Miller African Centered Academy in the Hill District.
During the 2001-02 school year, Landmarks and Mercy Hospital cooperated in a nine-month project that helped students in a mentoring program for grades three to five learn about the history and architectural significance of their school, which opened in 1849 as the first black public school in the city.
” It was very, very rewarding,” Moriarty said. The program concluded with the students presenting a play to convince Landmarks’ trustees that their school was worthy of the Historic Landmark plaque that today adorns the front of the Reed Street building.
The effort brought recognition to the foundation, which received a 2003 Historic Preservation Award from Preservation Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
Such recognition is verification that officials and supporters of the organization made the right choice when they decided the timing was right for the sale of Station Square, Ziegler said.
Prominent among those supporters was philanthropist Richard M. Scaife, owner of the Tribune-Review Publishing Co. His pledge of $5 million through the Allegheny Foundation in 1974 was the key to jump-starting transformation of the one-time Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad warehouse site along the Monongahela River.
” I felt we had accomplished exactly what our board, the Allegheny Foundation and Dick Scaife set out to do,” Ziegler said. “We proved our principles of urban renewal, and we introduced Pittsburghers to the rivers, which was really new here. Sure, it was hard to let go, but there were so many things that we wanted to do, things that we could move on to.”
Louise Sturgess, executive director who oversees the foundation’s education activities, said it strives to turn the region “into a classroom for learning” through its tours, architectural design challenges, special educational programs and publications.
” Landmarks’ education program has greatly expanded since 1994, because of our organization’s support and commitment, and because private foundations and members have contributed to specific programs,” Sturgess said. In 2002, more than 14,000 students, teachers, members and visitors participated, she said.
A majority of the foundation’s education programs are focused in Allegheny County, but they also reach schools in other counties. Examples are an Architectural Design Challenge that annually involves about 200 middle and high school students from Westmoreland County, and a special series of annual tours for Charleroi and Bentworth Elementary Centers in Washington County.
Chris and Jason Farmakis also are beneficiaries of the foundation’s efforts in neighborhood preservation. The two brothers and business partners currently are working to restore a vacant building at 233 W. Eighth Avenue in West Homestead, where in the fall they to open a new embroidery store.
Helping to make the work possible is a $2,500 grant from the Homestead Economic Revitalization Corp. and a $5,000 facade restoration grant secured through Pittsburgh History & Landmarks. It is one of six different grants totaling $30,000 the foundation (with financial support from the Pittsburgh Foundation, the Local Initiative Support Corp. and Eat n’ Park Corp.) arranged for building owners along Eighth Avenue corridor in the Homestead area,
With their help, we are talking a dilapidated, run down, vacant building … and hopefully putting a productive business there that will pay taxes to the community,” said Chris Farmakis “We would not be able to put on a whole new complete facade but for the fact we are able to do it for 50 cents on the dollar.”
Such neighborhood and education efforts will continue as the foundation goes forward, and there surely will be others, Ziegler said.
” Because we are a very flexible organization, we are always trying to be open to needs, opportunities, ideas and learning,” he said. “I think we will continue with the same operating principles, but we will always be willing to look at fresh things.”
—
A list of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation’s activities in 2002:
* Awarded $64,150 to 24 historic religious properties in Allegheny County for building projects.* Saved a historic, 62-acre Westmoreland County farm through creative gift-planning strategies, and talked with 23 farm and land owners about rural preservation.
* Continued restoration of the Allegheny County Courthouse and began work on a museum in the former county jail.
* Partnered with Duquesne Light Co., the Riverlife Task Force and others to light the Roberto Clemente Bridge in Pittsburgh.
* Participated in planning for development projects including Fifth-Forbes, Point State Park and with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.
* Published “Henry Hornbostel: An Architect’s Master Touch,” by Walter C. Kidney, the foundation’s architectural historian.
* Committed $395,000 in loans to aid neighborhood restoration programs in the Allegheny West, Bloomfield and Homestead communities.
* Installed a new cedar roof on the Neville House and underwrote restoration studies of the Woods House and Oliver Miller Homestead.
* Connected more than 1,000 people with restoration experts and services during the organization’s Seventh Annual Old House Fair, sponsored by Dollar Bank.
* Involved more than 14,000 students, teachers, members and visitors in a variety of educational programs featuring local history and architecture.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
-
Store fate is raising questions
By Michael Yeomans
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, August 2, 2003Questions linger in the wake of May Department Stores Co. decision to sell or close its Downtown Lord & Taylor store. Among them:
Who will buy the building? And, would the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority approve another so-called “soft loan” in the future in order to lure another retailer into the space?
In the case of the building, speculation abounds, but no clear favorite has emerged. Some experts say a relocation of the Downtown Saks Fifth Avenue across Smithfield Street to the larger Lord & Taylor space makes sense. Others have said the city could take another crack at luring two other upscale retailers — Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.
May Co. spokeswoman Laura Bryant said Friday a meeting has been arranged between the company and city officials to begin a dialogue over what will become of the building, a landmark structure. In the meantime, it is open for business as usual.
On the question of financing, it appears the city would be willing to offer some type of incentive package for a new retailer.
Lord & Taylor received an $11.75 million “soft loan” from the URA as an inducement to open a store in the former Mellon Bank headquarters building at Smithfield and Fifth avenues, which it did in November 2000.
Under the agreement, Lord & Taylor would only have to begin paying that loan back once sales reached $35 million, at which point it would have to pay 2 percent of gross sales over that $35 million figure. After five years, or in November 2005, the company could close the store without repaying the loan.
The Lazarus-Macy’s store on Fifth Avenue received a similar incentive in 1998, obtaining an $18 million loan from the Pittsburgh Development Fund in return for an agreement to operate for five years, meaning the store could close at year’s end with the loan not being repaid, since it, too, has not reached its sales trigger, $41.7 million.
“If the mayor’s office wants us to assist in finding a new tenant-owner for the Lord & Taylor building, we would do so,” Jerry Dettore, deputy director of the URA said yesterday, declining to comment on whether the URA’s efforts would include soft loans.
Aaron Stauber, managing director of Rugby Realty, who participated in the redevelopment of the former Gimbel’s department store on Sixth Avenue, said Lord & Taylor has several options.
One possibility is to stay open two more years, if it doesn’t find a buyer before that, then shut the store down, without paying back the loan.
Another is to negotiate a partial payment of the loan with the URA, and shut the store down.
Yet another option is to sell or give the building to the URA as a payoff of the loan and take a write-off on the asset.
The building has 196,000 square feet, including 135,000 square feet of selling space on four floors. It is valued at $27.5 million by the county, roughly the amount of money spent by May Co. to renovate the former bank building after paying Mellon Financial Corp. $9.25 million for the structure in 1999.
Stauber said the most logical result is for Saks Fifth Avenue to relocate from its Oliver Street location to the Lord & Taylor building.
This would fulfill a long rumored desire for Saks to expand its store here in a better location, while not introducing a new competitor to the market for May Co.
Hugh “Herky” Pollock, executive vice president of CB Richard Ellis Pittsburgh, agrees.
“For this to work, the city would have to structure a deal by which it would purchase Saks’ current building,” he said.
“We’re always evaluating our store base and exploring opportunities for expansion where appropriate,” said Saks spokeswoman Julia Bentley.
Margaret “Midge” McCauley of Philadelphia-based Kravco, whose Downtown Works division is assembling a plan for redeveloping the city’s Fifth and Forbes corridor, said her group has not been invited into the talks between May Co. and the city, but she said Kravco stands ready to help.
“We have an excellent relationship with the May Co.,” she said, adding that her group has had talks in the past with Saks, but none recently.
When asked if Kravco would possibly be a buyer of the Lord & Taylor building, McCauley said, “That hasn’t been discussed.”
McCauley said there are several incentive tools Kravco could employ to lure tenants to the Fifth and Forbes area, but she said until lease agreements are negotiated, it’s too soon to discuss specifics.
She said any large retailer considering the Lord & Taylor site would likely request some incentives, but she said they would already have incentive enough in a “beautiful building that has already been (remodeled)” only three years ago.
What could likely be ruled out for the building, Stauber said, is a conversion into offices, which would be difficult and expensive. He said it would likely be cheaper for someone looking for office space to build their own building from the ground up for less money.
He also said it is unlikely it would lease the building, especially to a competitor to Kaufmann’s, which May Co. owns across Smithfield Street.
The thing that astounded Stauber is the abysmal sales record reported by Lord & Taylor, which the URA said was less than $10 million in 2002 — about a quarter of what would have triggered repayment of the URA loan.
Stauber said the Burlington Coat Factory, in the basement of former Gimbel’s building that his firm redeveloped, does more sales than that in a smaller store selling cheaper merchandise.
He said Lord & Taylor likely presented the city credible per-square-foot sales numbers from its existing stores to justify the loan trigger amount. He said if the URA does similar type deals in the future, it needs to be more conservative in setting the trigger figure.
Or even better, he said, instead of an all-or-nothing trigger amount, the URA could adopt a tiered repayment plan that would kick in at lower levels of sales.
Tribune-Review reporter Sam Spatter contributed to this story.
Michael Yeomans can be reached at myeomans@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7908.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
-
Retail will follow the residents
By George Aspiotes and Maggi Newhouse
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, August 1, 2003When it comes to retail, planning officials from cities nationwide have this advice for Pittsburgh: Quit trying so hard.
Despite receiving $11.8 million in public money to open a Lord & Taylor in Downtown Pittsburgh, May Department Stores announced Tuesday that the location is one of 34 stores it plans to sell or close.For Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, the news further proves the strategy he has used in his city for years — fewer taxpayer subsidies means more success when it comes to business and residential development.
“You shouldn’t feel bad about Lord & Taylor,” Norquist said. “I’d feel bad about having bribed them to come in the first place. If you have patience, retail will develop.
“My feeling is the city should make it easy to convert buildings to housing. If more people lived Downtown, then the retail would follow.”
Norquist said his city has one department store, a Boston Store — and he’s fine with that. Since 1999, Milwaukee has added more than 3,000 residential units downtown — without any subsidies.
As a result, he has seen Milwaukee’s downtown area buck the national trend and grow in population.
In Pittsburgh, the population of the Golden Triangle (everything west of the Crosstown Boulevard) is approximately 2,000, according to the latest Census figures.
Milwaukee isn’t alone in its strategy. Across the country, cities of approximately Pittsburgh’s size are finding that retail becomes secondary in the larger goal of luring residents to downtowns.
Denver has not had a department store in its downtown since 1995. In the early 1990s, officials decided the city could not maintain a solid base for downtown department stores, said Ben Kelly, director of communications for the Downtown Denver Partnership.
“It was decided that much more effort would be put into bolstering downtown housing,” Kelly said. “We worked under the idea that rooftops would bring retail.”
Since 1995, downtown Denver has become an entertainment-oriented location. Anchored by Coors Field, the downtown development has focused on theaters and restaurants. City officials hope to attract 25,000 residents to the downtown in the next two decades, according to the Rocky Mountain News.
Downtown Denver has seen more than 6,600 residential units built since 1990, with 1,800 more under construction as of April, according to the Downtown Denver Partnership.
Tampa, Fla., a city of 303,000, saw its last downtown department store depart 15 years ago when the Maas Brothers Department Store closed after 100 years in the city.
As in Denver, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio has made boosting the downtown’s residential population a priority.
“In Tampa, the return of the department store is unlikely,” said Paul Ayres, director of marketing and business development for the Tampa Downtown Partnership. “We are working to add residential to the area. Then you’ll see other services come along that are more retail-oriented and geared toward the residential base.”
Downtown Columbus, Ohio, has two department stores within an urban mall. Bill Burns, a spokesman for the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce, said the stores, including a Lazarus that has been in the city for years, are only one part of a successful city.
“A downtown setting has to have housing, jobs, recreational opportunities; they all make up a successful downtown,” he said.
Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy’s spokesman, Craig Kwiecinski, said that is also the mayor’s strategy — to focus on commercial, entertainment, retail and housing.
One example is the latest plan for the Fifth and Forbes corridor, to be developed by Downtown Works, a division of Philadelphia-based Kravco. It calls for a combination of new and renovated buildings for retail and residential use.
“We are fortunate to have several major retailers anchoring our downtown,” Kwiecinski said. “We believe that is what we can build on to make downtown a vibrant retail destination.”
“Pittsburgh has tried too hard (on retail),” Milwaukee’s Norquist said. “Try to work more with the real estate market. You don’t have to subsidize.”
Still, the city will have three department stores after Lord & Taylor is gone — and that’s three more than Cleveland.
George Aspiotes and Maggi Newhouse can be reached at gaspiotes@tribweb.com or 412-320-7982.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review