Category Archive: Preservation Alert
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City of Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission Denies Application to Build Medical Facility on First Baptist Church Parking Lot
Albert M. Tannler, Historical Collections Director
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation
July 12, 2006On May 8, 2006, Landmarks published a Preservation Alert regarding a proposal by The Elmhurst Group, the developer, and architects Burt Hill to erect a ten-story “acute care hospital” on a parcel of land next to the landmark First Baptist Church, owner of the property, which has been rented for some years as a parking lot. The site is located in the National Register Schenley Farms Historic District and the City of Pittsburgh Oakland Civic Center Historic District and adjacent to the City of Pittsburgh Schenley Farms Historic District. On Wednesday, July 12, 2006, the Historic Review Commission voted on the proposed construction. By a vote of 5-2, the Commission rejected the proposal. In two weeks the City of Pittsburgh Zoning Commission will hold a similar hearing. The proposal will then be sent to Pittsburgh City Council for a final decision.
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Preservation Alert: Schenley Farms/First Baptist Church
Albert M. Tannler, Historical Collections Director
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks FoundationOn May 3, 2006, the City of Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission (HRC) heard testimony regarding proposed new construction to be located in the City of Pittsburgh Oakland Civic Center Historic District, on land owned by the First Baptist Church—currently a parting lot—at the end of Bigelow Blvd., between the church on the east and Ruskin Avenue on the west. The church, designed by Bertram G. Goodhue for Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson and erected 1909-11, and the area under discussion are within the Oakland Civic Center National Register and City of Pittsburgh Historic Districts.
The developer of the proposed building is the Elmhurst Group, which has leased the land from the First Baptist Church and plans to rent space primarily to Select Medical for an “acute care hospital,” as well as to other tenants. Zoning has been approved by the City of Pittsburgh, although some individuals believe that the proposed use of the property is in violation of Code section 905.03.D which applies to all land that lies within the Educational-Medical-Institutional zoning district.
Bigelow Blvd. at Bayard Street is the principle entry into Oakland from the west, passing through the center of the residential Schenley Farms National Register and City of Pittsburgh Historic Districts. The proposed building, designed by Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann Associates Architects of Butler, Pa., and Pittsburgh, is a nine-story, 148 foot tall, 140,000 square foot hospital/medical office building with three levels of parking for 158 automobiles. The First Baptist Church is 55 feet high at the eave line, omitting the ornamental fleche; the portion of the building nearest Bayard Street, the parish house, is 22 feet to the eave line. Crawford Hall, across Ruskin Avenue, while typical of the non-contributing University of Pittsburgh buildings erected in the National Register district, is no more than 55 feet high. Only Fifth Avenue, two blocks to the south and very different in character, accommodates a few historic buildings 60 feet in height or higher, such as the Pittsburgh Athletic Association and the former Masonic Temple, in what is the axis of the early 20th-century Civic Center.
Concerned residents of Schenley Farms, who are members of the Schenley Farms Civic Association; the president of the condominium association of The Bristol on nearby Bellefield Avenue; and a representative of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (Landmarks) testified in opposition to the proposal.
It is Landmarks’ opinion that the design in question does not meet the New Construction Design Criteria for the Oakland Civic Center Historic District with regard to scale, materials, massing, siting, and details, and would have a negative impact on the adjacent Schenley Farms Federal and City Historic Districts, and on the First Baptist Church. Landmarks does not object to erecting a building on this site; indeed Bertram Goodhue designed one for precisely this site. (That design might well be taken into account in any proposed new design proposal.) In 2003 Landmarks commissioned a schematic architectural design for this site illustrating how one might place a compatible new building next to the church. The schematic design provided for a 64,000 square foot office building with 142 parking spaces on three levels and met the new construction design criteria.
It might seem alarmist to compare this proposal to the unsuccessful attempt to build a residential tower adjacent to B. G. Goodhue’s St. Bartholomew’s Church in the 1980s or to compare the scale of the project to the Pan Am building on Park Avenue in New York City. Yet it is fair to say that the negative impact of this proposed building for this site, given its size and its design, would be as deadly as the former might have been and in this context far more damaging than the latter is. The next HRC hearing on this matter will be June 14, 2006. Comments should be addressed to:
Michael Eversmeyer
Chairman
Historic Review Commission
City of Pittsburgh Department of City Planning
200 Ross Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15219Email comments may be sent: angelique.bamberg@city.pittsburgh.pa.us.
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Carnegie Libraries in Hazelwood, Homewood, Lawrenceville, Mt. Washington and the West End Public Hearings Scheduled
Material From May25th Email Alert by Glenn A. Walsh
Yesterday, the City Council President finally scheduled public hearings [five–one for each library nomination] for the five Carnegie Library buildings nominated to be historic structures, under the City Historic Review ordinance.
The schedule is as follows:
Wednesday, June 30th, 2004
1:30 p.m.
Bill # 282
Homewood Branch Library, 7101 Hamilton Ave., 13th Ward1:45 p.m.
Bill # 283
Lawrenceville Branch Library, 279 Fisk St., 9th Ward2:00 p.m.
Bill # 284
Mt. Washington Branch Library, 315 Grandview Ave., 19th Ward2:15 p.m.
Bill # 285
West End Branch Library, 47 Wabash St., 20th Ward2:30 p.m.
Bill # 286
Hazelwood Branch Library, 4748 Monongahela St., 15th WardNote that, even though only 15 minutes has been scheduled for each hearing, the number of people testifying will determine the true length of each hearing. If one or more hearings has more than five people pre-registered to testify, then that hearing will continue until all people registered have spoken. THe next public hearing wouuld then begin late.
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Murphy: City moving to tear down eyesores
By Tom Barnes,
Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Saturday, June 07, 2003Since last fall, the Murphy administration has reduced the number of vacant and condemned buildings in the city from 1,250 to about 800, but much still must be done to correct the problem of abandoned property, Mayor Tom Murphy said yesterday.
He said he hopes to either raze or rehabilitate the remaining 800 condemned structures over the next four years.
He spoke at a daylong Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation symposium on the problem the city faces from the years-long existence of empty, dilapidated properties and vacant lots.
Murphy said the city is using two main techniques to reduce the number of abandoned buildings, which can be in danger of collapsing, be used as hangouts by drug addicts or criminals and pose a visual blight on a neighborhood. He said the city is actively trying to demolish empty, dangerous structures while also working with neighborhood development groups to fix up those that are worth saving.
The city undertook an aggressive demolition program in Homewood last fall, razing 120 buildings at a cost of $700,000.
Landmarks President Arthur Ziegler urged that buildings be looked at for a second chance.
“We were concerned to learn of the city’s possible plan to demolish several thousand buildings,” he said. “We believe that in many cases, these buildings, although abandoned and often in poor condition, can still be community assets.”
To demolish some of these older buildings “is to lose architectural and economic assets,” Ziegler said.
By holding yesterday’s symposium, said Landmarks official Cathy McCollom, “We hope we can spur some discussion for a broader look at other solutions. Demolition should not be the only one.”
Yesterday’s conference was held at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland and attended by 250 community activists and housing officials. Speakers outlined some financial techniques, such as federal tax credits, that have been used here and in other cities to restore old, vacant structures.
Stanley Lowe, vice president of Landmarks and former director of the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, estimated that there were as many as 12,000 vacant buildings in the city, a far greater number than the 1,250 that the city Bureau of Building Inspections last year had officially condemned.
“For the last 15 years, we’ve always had at least 1,500 buildings on the condemned list,” Murphy said. “We would tear 200 or 300 down and another 200 or 300 would go onto the condemned list. A house or a block of houses that are vacant and abandoned in a neighborhood just drags the whole neighborhood down.”
He is trying to be aggressive in removing such hazardous urban blight. But contrary to criticism from some historic preservationists, Murphy also said he’s willing to consult with community groups and City Council members to find which structures in a neighborhood are historically important and worth saving for reuse.
(Tom Barnes can be reached at tbarnes@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1548.)
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Group Works to Save Only Surviving 18th Century Stone House in City of Pittsburgh
April 14, 2003
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, in conjunction with the Hazelwood Initiative, Inc., Doug Shields from City Council District 5, and the Urban Redevelopment Authority, are working to preserve the Woods Home, an important historical site located in the Hazelwood section of the city.
The group is submitting an application for Save America’s Treasures to the National Parks Service which, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, administers this grant program, the purpose of which is to preserve the nation’s cultural heritage. Grants for preservation and/or conservation work on nationally significant historic structures and sites are awarded through a competitive process in amounts of up to $1 million.
Doug Shields, former administrative assistant to Councilman Bob O’Connor and acting administrator for District 5, said, “We are grateful to Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation for funding a preliminary structural review of the Woods Home. It is an important community asset and we hope that the Save America’s Treasures funding will allow us to rehabilitate the structure.”
The Woods Home, built of cut stone, is one of only three surviving 18th century structures in Pittsburgh, the other two being the Fort Pitt Blockhouse at the Point and the Neill Log House in Schenley Park.
“The house is in pretty bad shape now,” said Arthur Ziegler, President of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, “but the structural analysis undertaken by Landmarks Design Associates does show that it is still possible to restore the structure, and because of its significance as a rare survivor of late 18th century architecture this makes it worth while to continue to explore funding mechanisms to rehabilitate it.”
The site is already designated as an Historic Landmark by the City of Pittsburgh and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Woods family, at one time wealthy and socially prominent, were the pioneer landowners in Hazelwood. The vast extent of the Woods holdings may be imagined when it is stated that the original area embraced all of the land between “Frankstown” at Second Avenue and Forward Avenue in Glenwood, extending from the river to Squirrel Hill. The first survey of Pittsburgh was made in 1784 by Colonel George Woods; the present Wood Street in downtown Pittsburgh honors him. George Woods, the Colonel’s son, was a prosperous lawyer who in 1792 built the estate he called “Hazel Hill.” Hazelwood, in fact, received its name from him.
While the Woods Home is important in terms of Pittsburgh’s history, the home has national significance as well. According to research conducted last year by Bob O’Connor, at the time Councilman for District 5, it was found that Stephen Foster, recognized as America’s first professional composer, spent a lot of time there in the mid-1800s. He apparently wrote or performed a number of his most famous songs at the Woods House. The Woods family piano is now housed at the Stephen Foster Memorial in Pittsburgh.
The deadline for the Save America’s Treasures grants is May 20th. The group is also exploring other funds and a sustainable use for the building.