Category Archive: Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Historic Downtown Site Sold
By Thomas Olson, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, September 30, 2010
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation was given the easement to the historic Burke Building, Downtown, by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy so the foundation can assure no future owners tear it down or alter its exterior. Jasmine Goldband | Tribune-Review
The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has sold the oldest architect-designed building in Pittsburgh — and granted an easement to the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation to make sure it’s never torn down.
Built in 1836, the Burke Building at 209 Fourth Avenue, Downtown, was sold Monday to Burke Building Enterprises L.P., said conservancy spokeswoman Stephanie Kraynick.
She declined to provide further information about the purchaser but described the partnership as people “who appreciate the historical quality of the building and plan to preserve” it.
The three-story, stone structure — a striking contrast to the modern PPG Place that sits next to it — is one of the few remaining structures to survive the city’s great fire of 1845. The building is unoccupied.
“It is a really important building,” said Arthur Ziegler, president of History & Landmarks. “Anyone who owns the building now and forevermore is subject to the condition that they can’t demolish it or change the exterior without our consent.”
“The conservancy has easements on lots and lots of land. They gave us this (easement) because we protect buildings,” he said.
The conservancy’s headquarters was located in the Burke Building until September 2007, when the organization relocated to Washington’s Landing.
The architect was John Chislett, an British native who relocated to New York in 1832. He moved to Pittsburgh a year later and remained here.
“The Burke Building is extremely handsome and the oldest building we’ve got,” said Al Tanner, the foundation’s historical collections director. “Over the years, it housed a bank, a restaurant, and a variety of other (tenants).”
Three other buildings in Pittsburgh that Chislett designed are still standing. The Gateway and Lodge of Allegheny Cemetery, which are two adjoining structures in Lawrenceville; and the Widows and Orphans Society of Allegheny City building on the North Side.
Tanner said that in Chislett’s day, he was probably best known in Pittsburgh for designing the original Allegheny County Court House in 1841. It burned down in 1882 and was replaced two years later with a design by the world-famous H.H. Richardson, who designed other buildings in this region.
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Uses for South Park Fairgrounds Offered
By Matthew Santoni
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, September 30, 2010Allegheny County residents Wednesday night offered their ideas for revitalizing the rundown fairgrounds in South Park as part of the county’s push to reuse or redevelop it.
More than 100 people attended the meeting in the Museum Building to discuss how they’d like to see the 80-acre site made more attractive and useful, with ideas ranging from converting buildings into indoor sports arenas to tunneling under a hill so pedestrians can reach Port Authority’s nearby light-rail line.
The county has retained Homestead-based GAI Consultants Inc. to hold public hearings, focus groups and online surveys to gather ideas with the hope that the county can do more with its limited money and manpower, said sustainability manager Jeaneen Zappa.
The fairgrounds still hosts community days and other events but hasn’t been the site of a county fair since the late 1970s.
During World War II, German and Italian prisoners of war were temporarily housed in some of the buildings, said Robert Bastianini, a member of the South Park Township Historical Society.
“I would like to see some kind of fair come back,” he said. “These buildings have stood empty almost all year round.”
Bastianini also asked that one of the buildings be donated to the historical society for use as an office and museum.
Representatives of the Allegheny County Martial Arts Center, a nonprofit which has rented, renovated and maintained one of the former exhibit buildings since 1986, would like to see other organizations given a chance to lease sections of the buildings as studios, practice spaces or storefronts, said senior martial arts instructor Rick Sbuscio.
“These clubs are resources,” said Jeff Danchik, director of the Mon Valley Express Drum and Bugle Corps, another long-term tenant of one of the buildings. “We fix up the building, and that’s our rent … but there isn’t any mechanism in place for these groups to go from an idea to getting money and building something.”
Another public hearing will be held in November, and a final report is expected by mid-December. County residents can fill out an online survey at alleghenycounty.us/parks/SPFairgrounds.
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Tens of thousands still powerless after storm
By Margaret Harding, Michael Hasch and Bill Vidonic
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, September 23, 2010Thousands of Western Pennsylvanians remain without power today and might not have service restored until Sunday morning.
Wednesday’s brief but powerful thunderstorm has left a lasting impression.
Duquesne Light reported 13,000 customers — many in Allegheny County’s South Hills neighborhoods — do not have electricity. Customers in Baldwin, Castle Shannon, Dormont, Mt. Lebanon and Scott, as well as Banksville, Beechview and Brookline in the city, might not have service until Sunday, said spokesman Joseph Vallarian.
Allegheny Power reported 14,000 Pennsylvania customers were in the dark. Those in Allegheny, Washington and Westmoreland counties might not have service restored until 11:30 p.m. Friday, the company said.
High winds and lightning yesterday afternoon toppled trees, power lines and even an old church steeple, damaging homes, businesses and cars and prompting schools to cancel classes today. About 30 businesses and schools closed or delayed opening, according to WPXI-TV, the Tribune-Review’s news partner.
A generator leaking carbon monoxide forced the evacuation of a Mt. Lebanon apartment building early this morning, a spokeswoman with the township said. No one was injured.
Fourteen people who live in the lower levels of the building on Washington Road took refuge in the nearby municipal building, the spokeswoman said. Their apartments were ventilated, and residents returned about 7 a.m., she said.
Emergency dispatchers fielded calls of sparking electrical wires, downed trees and a transformer fire this morning in Pittsburgh.
Hilltop Road from Breckenridge Drive in Collier to Collier Avenue in Heidelberg was closed because of downed lines and trees, PennDOT said.
Wind gusts estimated at nearly 70 mph sent trees crashing onto cars in Mt. Lebanon and Banksville, according to National Weather Service reports and emergency dispatchers. Small hail was reported across the South Hills, the weather service said.
About 100,000 Duquesne Light and Allegheny Power customers lost power at the height of the storm.
Lightning shattered the steeple at a former South Side church housing the Pittsburgh Action Against Rape offices, sending the wooden, brick and copper structure through the roof and ceilings of the three-story building on South 19th Street.
“There’s a steeple on my chair,” said Leah Vallone, the center’s supervisor of crisis intervention, who escaped injury because she was in a meeting. “I was religious, but I think I will be even more so now.”
Five employees of the Lighting by Erik showroom on West Liberty Avenue in Dormont escaped injury when a window exploded under the force of the wind, shards of glass turning into shrapnel as dozens of chandeliers, lamps and glass accessories inside shattered.
“The windows were just shaking and rattling,” said Lewis Cantor, whose family has owned the business since 1965.
Westmoreland 911 dispatchers had reports of homes with structural damage, and downed trees and wires, said spokesman Dan Stevens. He said Greensburg, Unity, Penn and Murrysville as some of the hardest-hit areas.
“I was sitting there, watching the storm, and then all of a sudden the wind became so terrific, and this tree just cracked, and it fell straight in my yard. It missed my house, but it came close,” said Jack Zellie of Unity in Westmoreland County. “It happened suddenly. A great, big wind came up it seemed like a wind burst of sorts you could see (the tree) just crack. … It was overwhelming, to be honest with you.”
Damage reports continued to come in this morning, Stevens said.
“This was a fast-moving, widespread storm,” he said. “People made it home last night and just didn’t go back out.
“They’re just going out now and finding that there are trees down in their roads.”
Staff writers Cody Francis contributed to this report.
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Church Building Preservationists Hail Judge’s Action
By Liz Hayes
VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Thursday, September 16, 2010Congregants who oppose the demolition of a historic Poke Run Presbyterian Church building believe a county judge has granted them access to the tools they need to save the structure.
Nine members of the Washington Township church last week filed a lawsuit in Westmoreland County Court against the church trustees. They asked for an injunction to delay the demolition and requested the judge force the trustees to turn over some church documents.
Judge Gary P. Caruso on Friday issued the preliminary injunction, but he lifted it during a hearing Monday. Caruso said the court does not have the jurisdiction to enforce an injunction.
However, Caruso ordered the trustees to provide a 10-point list of documents to the plaintiffs, including minutes from several church meetings dating to June 2009, church bylaws and any contracts and resolutions relating to the demolition.
Trustee President Vince Goodiski previously said the demolition of the church’s academy building, which dates back to 1889, would make way for an elevator and ground-floor access to the church’s fellowship hall. He said the existing handicap access to the church is inadequate.
The church was established in 1785 and is located on Poke Run Church Road, near the intersection of Routes 366 and 66.
Trustees insist they followed all congregational and Redstone Presbytery rules when they voted to demolish the old wooden building.
But lead plaintiff Maynard Miller of Kiski Township believes church regulations were not followed, and he hopes the requested documents will support his case.
Miller said he was pleased with Caruso’s decision and hopes the church soon will turn over the requested documents. He said the plaintiffs can’t take further action until they review that information.
“Our determination of where we go from here will be determined on what is in the information I’m seeking from the church,” Miller said.
Miller said the trustees’ timeline for the demolition leaves opponents at least six weeks to review the documents and react. He was hopeful the trustees would not move up the work in the meantime.
Goodiski could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Walt Lange, vice president of the board of the trustees, declined to comment.
Miller said about 100 church members have signed his petition to save the building. Additionally, he said a similar number of members in the Washington Township Alumni Association have protested demolition of the building, which once served as a high school.
“Over 200 people are pleading with them, ‘Don’t destroy our historical legacy,'” Miller said.
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Cabinets’ Display of Pittsburgh Artifacts Debut
By Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Wednesday, September 8, 2010City Council President Darlene Harris unveiled two display cases Tuesday morning outside council chambers in City Hall featuring historical documents and memorabilia.
Included are the official charters of the City of Pittsburgh and what was then the Borough of Pittsburgh; flags of Pittsburgh’s 16 sister cities; and gifts presented to the city from visiting dignitaries.
The cabinets were paid for with money allocated for the Sister City program. Pittsburgh’s sister cities include Sheffield, England; DaNang, Vietnam; and Karmiel and Misgav, Israel.
The Sister City program began in 1956 to further exchanges between the United States and other countries.
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Trail Envisioned as Enriching Youghiogheny Towns
By Stacey Federoff
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, September 15, 2010The Great Allegheny Passage trail generates $40 million a year in economic spending, and a preservation plan is intended to use historic preservation in six trail towns to harness that spending power.
A meeting Tuesday night in West Newton hosted by the Progress Fund’s Trail Towns Program organized preliminary goals and objectives for that plan.
Meetings were open to the six communities — West Newton, Connellsville, Ohiopyle, Confluence, Meyersdale and Rockwood — in March to gather ideas.
This second round of workshops, including one at noon today at the Ohiopyle-Stewart Community Center in Ohiopyle and another at 6:30 p.m. at the Turkeyfoot Valley Historical Society in Confluence, are meant to make sure the project was on the right track.
“The purpose of these meetings is to test our information,” said Matt Goebel, vice president of Clarion Associates of Denver, a preservation planning firm assisting with the project. “We’re continuing to seek input as much as we can throughout this whole process.”
About 15 people, many of whom were officials involved in the plan, were on hand in West Newton, but Goebel said the plan is trying to include more than just historical societies and preservation agencies.
“A big theme of this project is that preservation needs to move beyond the usual suspects,” he said, branching out to local governments or chambers of commerce.
One of the group’s goals is to identify common industries and cultural landscapes while continuing to preserve each of the towns’ authenticity.
“We want the trail towns hopefully to work together, but we also want you to own who you are and what makes you unique,” said Erin Hammerstedt of Preservation Pennsylvania.
She pointed out potential areas for preservation in each town, complimenting the classic downtowns in West Newton and Connellsville.
The organizations hope to have a draft plan prepared this fall and begin implementing it by year’s end.
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Blight-Fighting Pennsylvania Bill Targets Vacant Buildings
By Craig Smith
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, September 27, 2010
Vacant properties at 1103-1105 Fulton St. mar the Manchester section of the North Side. Philip G. Pavely/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Grace Rothmeyer worries about her home of 23 years in Etna, even though one of two empty houses next door finally sold.
“I’m really happy that it sold,” said Rothmeyer, 77, of Oakland Street, who waited two years for new neighbors. “Sometimes when they are empty that long, they can become crack houses.”
Empty homes and buildings are causing a dilemma for municipal officials across the nation. Pennsylvania lawmakers are working to arm local officials with tools to battle blight.
A bill before the state House would allow for extradition of out-of-state property owners with pending housing code violations. The measure, introduced by Sen. David Argall, R-Schuylkill, unanimously passed the Senate in July and awaits action in the House Urban Affairs Committee. Lawmakers hope to get it ready for the governor’s signature before the end of the year.
The extent of the problem statewide is difficult to measure, officials said. Estimates put the number of vacant buildings across Pennsylvania at 300,000, including more than 17,000 in Pittsburgh and more than 44,000 in Allegheny County.
“There is no inventory of abandoned buildings,” said attorney Irene McLaughlin, who co-chairs a task force formed by the Allegheny County Bar Association’s Real Property Section and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s office.
Nationwide, foreclosures rose 4.2 percent in August from July but declined 5.5 percent from a year ago. The pace of home mortgage foreclosure activity decreased 13.2 percent in the seven-county Pittsburgh region from July levels but was up 16.8 percent from August 2009, according to data from RealtyTrac Inc.
Landlords oppose Argall’s bill.
“It will hamper development; it will tie the hands of people who do that kind of work,” said Jean Yevik, president of the Western Pennsylvania Real Estate Investors Association.
She questioned whether extradition would work.
“I feel those folks have a responsibility if they bought property here, but if they are going to try to extradite those with code violations, do you think California will extradite them?” Yevik asked. “Would you like to be the test case? I would.”
Municipal authority
The bill would give municipalities the authority to go after the financial assets of negligent owners and hold lenders responsible for properties they control through foreclosure.
“That’s what we need,” said Ed Fike, mayor of Uniontown.
Once home to Sears Roebuck & Co., G.C. Murphy Co. and Kaufmann’s, the Fayette County seat is a city in transition like many Pennsylvania towns. Large, empty storefronts were converted to apartments for seniors and other uses.
Officials in small boroughs such as Etna have hoped for a broad approach rather than community-by-community enforcement.
“This needs to go up a couple levels,” borough Manager Mary Ellen Ramage said. “It is a problem that many (communities) face.”
Many of Etna’s 15 to 20 vacant buildings, including the former Freeport Hotel, have been empty for more than 10 years.
“All smaller communities are suffering the impact of this. No community is exempt,” said Diana M. Reitz, community development coordinator in Jeannette. “Government has to step it up.”
Between April 1, 2009, and March 31, Pittsburgh spent more than $615,000 in Community Development Block Grant money on clearance and demolition, according to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Allegheny County spent more than $1.3 million for clearance and demolition between March 1, 2009, and Feb. 28.
Westmoreland County spent more than $303,000 between May 1, 2009, and Aug. 1 of this year for clearance and demolition, HUD records show.
Developing a plan to reuse properties after they’re acquired is critical, said Larry Larese, executive director of the Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corp.
“The devil will be in the details,” he said.
‘Right-sizing’ razing
Advocates for cities with declining populations — they call it “right-sizing” — maintain that those cities should accept they won’t rebuild population bases quickly and should level abandoned houses and buildings to make room for parks, gardens and green spaces.
The Center for Community Progress, a blight-fighting group from Flint, Mich., is working with 15 cities, including Pittsburgh, to develop strategies to deal with blight.
Flint razed 1,500 to 1,600 abandoned houses to reshape its neighborhoods, said Dan Kildee, co-founder and president of the organization and the former treasurer of Genesee County, Mich., and Genesee County Land Bank chairman.
“It’s about reuse of the land … working with local investors and neighborhoods, instead of shotgunning these properties out to the speculator market,” Kildee said.
But wholesale bulldozing worries preservationists.
“We are talking with the city about (buildings) that are architecturally valuable. And the city has been cooperative,” said Arthur Ziegler Jr., president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. “But there’s been no overall policy developed yet.”
People abandon buildings for many reasons, according to Sustainable Pittsburgh, an advocacy group working to revitalize urban areas.
The properties might be owned by absentee landlords or slumlords. They might be sealed, vacant properties that speculators are sitting on. Some are underwater — that is, the debt exceeds market value. Others are owned and occupied by people whose incomes don’t allow for needed repairs.
Many are properties whose owners died, moved to nursing homes, relocated for job opportunities or went bankrupt.
Land bank authorities
A separate bill that establishes land bank authorities in Pennsylvania passed the House in June. It awaits action in the Senate.
The measure, introduced by Rep. John Taylor, R-Philadelphia, would enable local governments to establish land bank authorities that can maintain, develop and resell properties they buy through foreclosures or sheriff’s sales. If Taylor’s bill passes, Pennsylvania would become the ninth state with such a law.
Land banking authorities are an alternative to the traditional method of auctioning foreclosed properties.
Kendall Pelling, project manager with East Liberty Development Inc., stands in front of a home acquired by the nonprofit development group and renovated along Baywood Street in East Liberty. Justin Merriman/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
“Legislation at the state level … will help communities deal holistically with abandoned properties. They can be moved into public ownership more quickly,” said Kendall Pelling, project manager at East Liberty Development Inc., a nonprofit development corporation working to help revitalize the community.
Abandoned buildings are “impeding community and economic development programs and conveying images of old, worn-out communities,” said Joanna Demming, director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania office of The Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania.
Their impact is felt in communities such as Etna, a close-knit town where men once walked to work in nearby mills. The borough’s population was 7,493 in 1930 but dwindled to 3,560 by 2008, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.
“I could see my wife hanging laundry in the yard while I was at work,” recalled Sigmund Dziubinski, 80, of Oakland Street. “It was a different era. You lived and worked in the town.”
Rent, raze or remodel?
The house at 5506 Baywood St. in East Liberty had been abandoned for 10 years and was ready for the wrecking ball, neighbors said.
“It took a leap of faith to rehabilitate it,” said Gary Cirrincione, who lives nearby and serves on the Negley Place Neighborhood Alliance, a community group of “urban activist-types and people with an appreciation of historic housing” that has been working to revitalize the neighborhood for the past 20 years.
“We’ve been called the Woodstock generation,” Cirrincione said.
The effort is paying off; the neighborhood is turning around.
The house across the street from 5506 is being restored. Down the block, another. A couple of streets over, houses that once stood empty contain families.
“We have properties on Baywood that would have sold lower. If you can do the right intervention, you can stabilize the market,” said Kendall Pelling, project manager at East Liberty Development Inc., a nonprofit development group involved with the purchase, sale or renovation of 102 properties during the past three years.
A house bought in foreclosure in 2007 for $55,000 was sold last year for $310,000. Another former tax foreclosure property that underwent extensive renovation is for sale; its asking price is $324,900.
As in neighborhoods in other towns across Pennsylvania, absentee landlords were a problem in East Liberty.
“There’s a tendency to slap a coat of paint on it and rent it as is. … Milk the building, and then walk away,” Cirrincione said.
Darleena Butler watched a lot of rehab work along Baywood in the three years she has lived there. More remains to be done. The house across the street has been empty for a year; the one next door is for sale.
“Instead of tearing them down, remodel,” Butler said. “That brings new life into the neighborhood.”
Nobody’s homeUsing data provided by the U.S. Postal Service, the Pittsburgh Neighborhood and Community Information System classified 8,555 of the 160,000 residential addresses in Pittsburgh as “vacant” during the third quarter of 2009 and another 8,995 as “not ready for occupancy.”
In Allegheny County, 20,730 of 603,000 residential addresses were vacant during that period while 23,387 were not ready for occupancy, the group reported.
Source: Pittsburgh Neighborhood and Community Information System
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Money Tagged for I-579 Project Could Be Used at New Arena
By Jeremy Boren
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, September 13, 2010Federal money intended to plug an unsightly concrete gap next to Interstate 579 might be used at Consol Energy Center instead.
At the request of the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, Sen. Bob Casey proposed redirecting the $974,000 earmark to pay for most of a walkway that would hug the exterior of the Penguins’ new home and connect its Fifth Avenue and Centre Avenue entrances.
People working on a master plan for the Lower Hill District and trying to preserve the Civic Arena question whether a Consol walkway is the best use of federal money in a neighborhood struggling with crime and poverty.
“If we’re going to move it around anyway, we need it for public safety on Centre Avenue,” said Carl Redwood, founder of the Hill District Consensus Group. “That takes priority.”
Redwood supports the concept of the $1.5 million walkway at Consol but said his group lobbied city police to address concerns about drug deals occurring near the Zone 2 station on Centre, not far from the arena.
Casey, D-Pa., declined to say whether he believes there’s a better use for the money, but he’s aware no consensus exists.
“If there are better ways to target the dollars, we try to be responsive to that. It doesn’t always work,” the senator said. “What I try not to do is to be an urban planner or a local government official. That really has to be a decision made here in Pittsburgh.”
The Consol walkway, dubbed “Curtain Call” by California artist Walter J. Hood, would feature 15-foot-tall stainless-steel curtains, a lighted path and photos of Hill District life embedded in the steel sheets.
URA Executive Director Rob Stephany said an “engineer’s sketch” of the I-579 “cap” project between the Hill District and Downtown would cost an estimated $15 million.
The original application for federal money from Casey’s office touts the cap as “a new urban green space that finally reconnects the Lower Hill District to downtown.”
After learning from the Sports & Exhibition Authority, which owns the new $321 million arena, that it lacked enough money to pay for Curtain Call, URA officials requested the money from Casey, Stephany said.
Rob Pfaffmann, a Downtown architect and frequent critic of the hockey team’s desire to demolish the Civic Arena and develop its 28-acre site, supports Curtain Call. Pfaffmann formed the grass-roots group Reuse the Igloo.
He believes the connection between Fifth and Centre is crucial because walking outside from one side of Consol to the other is difficult.
“Frankly, the Penguins should have paid for it,” Pfaffmann said.
In 2007, the Penguins agreed to contribute $4.1 million a year for 30 years to pay for part of the arena. Pittsburgh’s Rivers Casino pays $7.5 million a year from gambling revenue, and the state funding fueled by casino taxes chips in another $7.5 million a year.
The city Planning Commission required the walkway at the arena, Stephany said, noting the team never wanted anything so elaborate.
“We kind of fell in love with that notion of a public art project and pedestrian way,” he said.
The walkway would be open to everyone, not just hockey fans, he said.
“Will it make for a great experience for people at a game? Yes. Will it make for a great connector for a student on his way to a grocery store? Yes.”