Category Archive: Preservation News
-
Building cities, saving history: Pittsburgh’s revival shows how the future of cities depends on preserving their past, says RICHARD MOE, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Sunday, October 29, 2006In 1960, when the National Trust for Historic Preservation last held its annual conference in Pittsburgh, this city was well into its burgeoning transformation from a smoke-shrouded industrial center into an attractive, vibrant community. Forty-six years later, the more than 2,000 people who will gather here this week for the 2006 National Preservation Conference will see a city that has reinvented itself as a world-class metropolis, one that consistently ranks among the nation’s most livable.
The theme of this year’s conference, “Making Preservation Work!,” has particular relevance in Pittsburgh, for it was here that visionaries developed and refined many of the techniques that are now included in every preservationist’s toolkit.
In the 1960s, historic neighborhoods such as Manchester were laboratories for the use of revolving funds to spark community revitalization. Later, East Carson Street was one of the first big-city neighborhood business districts to participate in the National Trust’s Main Street program, which was originally developed for use in small towns. Adaptive-use projects, such as the rebirth of Station Square as a major retail and entertainment center and the conversion of Loew’s Penn Theater into the spectacular Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts, have been models for communities across the country. And the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has for four decades shown everyone how a top-notch preservation organization can make a real difference in a community’s appearance and quality of life.
What’s happened in Pittsburgh is a compelling illustration of how far we’ve come in our understanding of what revitalization really means. In most American cities during the 1950s and ’60s, including in Pittsburgh, the crash of the wrecking ball was part of the soundtrack of daily life. It was the heyday of Urban Renewal, and older buildings fell like dominos as cities sought to encourage revitalization by clearing “blighted” areas and creating vacant land for new development.
This orgy of demolition robbed us of many great buildings and viable neighborhoods, while the promised redevelopment was often slow in coming. In many cities — again including Pittsburgh, especially in areas such as the Hill District and East Liberty — the scars were painfully visible for a very long time.
We’ve learned a lot since then, and it’s no exaggeration to say that much of what we know about revitalization today, we learned from Pittsburgh.
When the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation used its revolving fund to purchase and renovate deteriorated older houses and then make them available to low- and moderate-income families, community activists everywhere learned that it wasn’t necessary to destroy a historic neighborhood in order to save it. When the foundation completed the nation’s first countywide landmarks survey, preservationists elsewhere got busy surveying their own counties. And when East Carson Street thrived after property owners and merchants decided to capitalize on the historic buildings that give the area its unique appeal instead of turning it into a soulless urban version of a suburban strip mall, business and government leaders from coast to coast got the message that preservation is good for the pocketbook as well as the soul.
There have been missteps, of course. To cite one recent example: A misguided proposal to flatten a big chunk of the city’s historic Downtown under the guise of “revitalization” landed the Fifth and Forbes retail corridor on the National Trust’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2000. We are glad preservationists, property owners, merchants and citizens banded together and defeated this plan.
For the most part, however, Pittsburgh has embraced the notion that revitalization doesn’t mean carting the past off to the landfill; it means using the best of the past to help build a better future. That’s good news for everyone who cares about preserving America’s heritage and allowing it to play a meaningful role in contemporary life.
Many National Preservation Conference attendees will be visiting Pittsburgh for the first time, and I have no doubt they’ll be impressed by what they see. They’ll take walking tours of Downtown, the North Side, Homewood and other neighborhoods. They’ll hear from experts such as Arthur Ziegler, who in 1993 received the Crowninshield Award, preservation’s highest accolade, for his work here in Pittsburgh. They’ll marvel at historic places such as the Allegheny County Courthouse and the Cathedral of Learning as well as more recent landmarks such as the Children’s Museum and the Mattress Factory. Everywhere they go, they’ll be reminded that the future of American cities lies in maintaining their sense of place and in strengthening their economic competitive edge by preserving and capitalizing on the historic treasures of their past.
In short, they’ll see how this city has made preservation work. And when they go back home, thousands of communities will benefit from the lessons they learned in Pittsburgh.
(The National Preservation Conference runs from Tuesday through Sunday at various venues and is based at the Hilton, Omni William Penn and Renaissance hotels Downtown. For more information, go to www.nationaltrust.org. )
-
Plans for Walgreens store get council’s OK
Staff and wire reports
Thursday, October 26, 2006Pittsburgh City Council unanimously approved plans Wednesday for a controversial Walgreens drug store in Point Breeze.
Construction could begin as early as April, once the city Planning Department approves a site plan.Neighbors of the proposed 14,550-square-foot store at the corner of Penn and Braddock avenues for months have objected to Paradise Development Group’s plan to raze three Victorian houses to make way for a two-lane drive-through window attached to the store.
In a compromise reached in September and OK’d yesterday, Paradise agreed to knock down only one home, which Paradise will purchase.
-
National preservation confab focuses on sustainable design
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Wednesday, October 25, 2006Pittsburgh will be turning green next week, but it won’t be with envy. We’re the lucky ones, after all: the National Trust for Historic Preservation is rolling into town for a week of workshops, meetings and tours, some centered on green design.
The Trust’s conference, which annually attracts about 2,000 people from across the country, is an opportunity for the host city to show off its historic buildings and neighborhoods and what it does best in preserving them.
Since Pittsburgh last hosted the Trust conference in 1960, the city has built a national reputation as a leader in green design, including the rehabilitation of older buildings with sustainable materials and technologies. Field and education sessions throughout the conference will focus on green renovations, including the Pittsburgh Glass Center and the Children’s Museum.
Pittsburgh was chosen for its “rich history and impressive record of preserving and revitalizing important places in the city,” said Richard Moe, president of the nonprofit education and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. It’s “an ideal location in which to explore the leading issues in preservation.”
Titled “Making Preservation Work!,” the 60th annual conference kicks off Tuesday after a daylong, preconference, charrette-style national summit on green design on Monday at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, where participants will develop goals and guidelines for greening historic properties. Public input will be solicited through a town meeting immediately after the charrette, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the history center. Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, the Trust’s principal planning partner for the conference, and the Green Building Alliance will co-host the summit and produce a report that will be shared with U.S. Green Building Council members at their Greenbuild conference next month.
While most of the conference’s educational sessions will be held at its three host hotels — the Hilton, Omni William Penn and Renaissance — the entire region will be its classroom for more than 30 field sessions. There will be daylong trips to Allegheny and Homewood cemeteries, the Strip District, Sewickley, Oakmont, Old Economy and Ambridge, Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob, Homestead and Braddock, Chatham College and Woodland Road houses, and Schenley, Highland and Riverview parks. In and around Pittsburgh, conference sessions will tour Downtown, the Hill District, Lawrenceville, Garfield, East Liberty, Shadyside, Homewood, Highland Park, the North Side, Mount Washington, Mt. Lebanon and Carnegie.
Another daylong session, on “Conducting a Historic Landscape Assessment,” will have participants exploring Point State Park and making recommendations for its use, treatment and interpretation.
The conference, which runs through Nov. 5, also will take on a host of challenging issues and opportunities facing communities, such as school reuse, property rights, eminent domain, keeping affordable housing in gentrified neighborhoods, the impact of wind farms, teardowns and McMansions and Katrina recovery in Mississippi and New Orleans. It also will explore the preservation of Carnegie libraries, modernist buildings, battlefields, rural landscapes, the remains of the World Trade Center and buildings on military bases facing closure. The emphasis is on sharing the best case studies and approaches from across the country.
Premiering at the conference will be filmmaker Kenneth Love’s “Saving Fallingwater,” documenting the recent restoration that saved its cantilevered terraces from falling into Bear Run. Mr. Love will speak at a screening at 1:45 p.m. Nov. 4 at the Hilton, one of several free conference events open to the public.
Author David McCullough and Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild founder and CEO Bill Strickland, both Pittsburgh natives, will give keynote addresses at the opening plenary session next Wednesday afternoon at the Benedum Center. Other conference speakers include architect Sarah Susanka, author of the “Not So Big House”; Ruth Abram, founder and president of Manhattan’s Lower East Side Tenement Museum; Charles Landry, founder of Comedia, Europe’s leading cultural planning consultancy; and WQED producer Rick Sebak.
The conference’s social events will be held at many other locations, including the Mattress Factory, Carnegie Music Hall foyer, Allegheny County Courthouse lobby, 1902 Tavern, Bossa Nova, First Lutheran Church and Regional Enterprise Tower (former Alcoa Building).
For those interested in attending the conference, on-site registration is available at the Hilton; the cost for all education sessions is $500, or $175 for students. There is an extra fee for field trips, some of which are sold out. Daily rates also are available at $175 for Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and $225 for Wednesday (which includes the keynote speeches). A conference program can be downloaded from the Trust’s Web site, www.nthp.org. Additional information is available at Landmarks’ Web site, www.phlf.org.
Preservation presentations
These events are open to the public during the National Trust for Historic Preservation conference:
* “National Summit Town Meeting on the Greening of Historic Properties,” soliciting public input on goals and guidelines for LEED certification. 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Monday, Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, Strip District.
* “The Story of Preservation in the Pittsburgh Region,” lecture by Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, Byham Theater; pick up pass at the theater box office immediately before lecture, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.
* The National Trust’s Exhibit Hall, including the History & Landmarks Foundation 11th Annual Old House Fair, 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. next Wednesday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 2; noon to 6 p.m. Nov. 3; Grand Ballroom, Hilton. Pick up a pass on the second floor of the Hilton.
* “Saving Fallingwater,” documentary film by Kenneth Love, 1:45 to 3:30 p.m. Nov. 4; Grand Ballroom, Hilton. Pick up a pass on the second floor of the Hilton from Oct. 31 up to time of screening.
Two additional events are open to members of History & Landmarks Foundation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation:
* National Preservation Awards 2006, 5:45 to 6:45 p.m. Nov. 2, Carnegie Music Hall. Pick up a pass at the music hall just before the event.
* Lecture by Sarah Susanka, author of the “Not So Big House,” 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Nov. 3, Omni William Penn.
— Patricia Lowry
-
Present-day Market Square ‘just a big joke’
By Bonnie Pfister
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, October 22, 2006New plans are afoot for sprucing up Market Square, the more than 220-year-old acre of public space that has been home, variously, to Pittsburgh City Hall, the first Allegheny County courthouse and — up until the early 1960s — a produce market house.
Although proposals for adding temporary art and activities, including those geared toward children, are among the improvements being mulled, there are fixtures that local merchants say are impeding positive public use.La Gondola Pizzeria owner Sergio Muto calls them “the statues of Market Square.”
“When I come in the morning, they’re here,” Muto said. “When I go home at night, they’re still here.”
They are the dozen or so people — mostly middle-aged men — who locals say spend most of the day and evening perched on the low marble walls around the southeastern quadrants of green space. With St. Mary of Mercy Church’s Red Door program around the corner handing out bagged lunches six days a week, Market Square long has been a place where the homeless can pass time.
Although merchants such as Muto and Dan Konieczny, manager at Jenny Lee Bakery, which has been Downtown since 1938, expressed empathy for the destitute, they say the panhandling and other behavior by some keep would-be patrons from lingering in the area, particularly at night.
“Too many of the regulars are doing drug deals or asking people for money,” Konieczny said. “The garbage, the language. You can make all the changes and redesigns you want. You’ve got to get rid of the bums,” he said. “Market Square is just a big joke.”
“It’s kind of shady,” said Heather Bitar, who works at nearby Point Park University.
Patronizing a farmer’s market stand in the square last Thursday during a spate of warm weather, Bitar said she avoids the area at night and on weekends. Even during the daylight, she said she has seen people arrested and recently a woman “throwing a fit, emptying her purse out on the ground and screaming that someone stole her drugs.
“But what are you going to do, post ‘No Loitering’ signs? It’s a public park,” she said.
And therein lies the challenge that has bedeviled Pittsburghers for much of the four decades. How do you tell people with nowhere else to go not to go to Market Square, with its legacy as a public space?
Since the 1963 demolition of the Diamond Market house — an elevated building straddling Forbes Avenue that featured a second-floor roller rink — Market Square has gone through several reconfigurations and even more proposals, said Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
In the mid-1970s, Ziegler said then-Mayor Pete Flaherty tapped into federal funds to hire students to replace the square’s asphalt roads with Belgian brick cobblestones in an effort to restore a Colonial atmosphere and encourage many of the same outdoor activities, such as sidewalk dining and art exhibits, that remain elusive today.
“Once the market-house demolition occurred, it became a place that didn’t quite know what to do with itself,” Ziegler said. “It’s gone through a number of revisions, none of which have been fully successful.”
It has played host to Steelers pep rallies, anti-war protests and rallies featuring national political figures. On April 15, 1985, a woman wearing a flesh-colored bodysuit and long, strategically draped hair rode through the square on a horse to protest taxation.
But today such public exhibitions tend to be less deliberative. A naked woman arrested in the square in June was merely fleeing after trying to shoplift a bag of peanuts from a Smithfield Street vendor, police said.
Although reported assaults were down from 11 in 2001 to three so far this year, and Pittsburgh police Cmdr. Cheryl Doubt said officers have managed to drive out the open-air drug activity of the past, more resources are needed. Since budget cuts in the early 1990s, only a single daytime beat officer monitors Market Square; he was not replaced during a recent four-month leave.
Michael Edwards, president of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, which commissioned the recent study by New York-based Project for Public Spaces, said enhanced police presence, at least initially, would be key to revitalization.
“We can’t be successful without stepped-up police enforcement of the rules,” Edwards said. “The way we’ll take back the square is through recognizing the need to manage it, and we’ll need the city’s resources.”
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said last week that the city will consider making some financial commitment to better management of the square, but he also expects “leadership from the business and foundation community.”
Edwards said the partnership has a $100,000 grant from the Colcom Foundation and hopes to land a similar one from the Heinz Foundation to begin planning events that will draw more people to Market Square — perhaps around Light Up Night on Nov. 17, or for extended outdoor dining in the spring.
“One of the things we heard loud and clear is, we’re done designing,” Edwards said. “The community is pretty tired of that.”
A redesign contest that was discussed earlier this year has been put aside in favor of smaller tweaks to the existing square, such as experimenting with temporary art and event programming. If these steps are successful, Edwards said, a more structured management plan could be forthcoming in several years, as could a redesign.
Not everyone is happy about the smaller-scale approach, however.
Ron Gargani, owner of Buon Giorno, said he is disappointed that a new redesign now — particularly one that reroutes buses as late Mayor Bob O’Connor had suggested, or adds parking spaces — would not be forthcoming.
“It’s just a Band-Aid on the problem,” said Gargani, who opened for business six years ago and purchased his building in 2004. “Who wants to bring their children here when you have cars and buses continuously flying by? This square needs completely redone.”
Bonnie Pfister can be reached at bpfister@tribweb.com.
-
Woodland Hills gathers data on school closings
By Karen Zapf
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, October 13, 2006A member of the Woodland Hills School Board said Thursday he understands the rationale for taking a look at closing three schools in the district by 2009.
Still, board member Fred Kuhn said he wants to look at all options before deciding whether to close Shaffer Primary in Churchill, Rankin Intermediate in Rankin and East Junior High School in Turtle Creek.“They’re on the table for discussion,” Kuhn said. “But they may all be taken off the table. It (the study) is in the beginning stages. I want to get more information.”
Kuhn said Shaffer, Rankin and East Junior High have declining enrollment.
District enrollment has dropped 3.2 percent over the last four years and total enrollment is projected to be at 5,100 in 2009, Kuhn said. About a decade ago, the district had about 6,000 students.
The reasons for the declining enrollment, Kuhn said, include lower birth rates, people moving because of tax rates, and other educational options, such as private schools and Propel East in Turtle Creek, a tuition-free, independent public school.The district needs a long-term financial plan in part because the teachers’ contract expires in June. The tax rate in the Woodland Hills School District is 23.9 mills.
Deborah Pike, Shaffer Primary Parent Teacher Organization president, said she wants more information from the district about the proposal.
Pike, of Churchill, said enrollment declined from 365 several years ago to 320 this year. Shaffer houses pupils in kindergarten through third grade. It’s a “decent-sized school,” she said. “It’s not like our halls are empty.”
Pike said it would be challenging to move the students at Shaffer to the other district schools because parking is limited at Edgewood Primary, and Wilkins Primary might not have space for more children.
Karen Zapf can be reached at kzapf@tribweb.com or (412) 380-8522.
-
Developer bids on 10 church properties
By Bill Zlatos
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, October 13, 2006The Follieri Group, a Manhattan-based developer, bid on 10 church properties in the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese, in what could be its biggest sale in decades, diocesan officials announced Thursday.
“We have received sales agreements on 10 church properties,” said the Rev. Ron Lengwin, spokesman for the diocese. “Those parishes are being consulted.”Lengwin declined to divulge the locations of the properties, vacancy status, or the amount of the offer.
“We could be talking about churches,” he said. “We could be talking about convents. We could be talking about schools.”
If the deal goes through, Lengwin said, it would be the largest purchase in the diocese by a single buyer of church property during his 25 years. He said he does not know how many vacant buildings are in the 214 parishes in Allegheny, Washington, Greene, Beaver, Butler and Lawrence counties.
“There is no timetable,” he said. “It’s something we’d like to do as soon as possible.”
Marcy Simon, head of communications for the Follieri Group, said the firm has submitted bids on area properties, although she did not identify which.
“We’ve not closed on any properties, we have not owned any properties yet,” she said last night.
She said the company was built on the teachings and beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church, and in developing properties, the company’s model is “to always give back to the communities we acquire properties in” and “look to the local resources that are available in the community to work on the development projects.”
Lengwin previously said Follieri was interested in buying St. Nicholas Church on Route 28 in the North Side. He would not say yesterday whether it is among the 10 properties.
Follieri’s earlier interest in St. Nicholas angered the Croatian American Cultural and Economic Alliance, which thought it was close to a $250,000 deal with the diocese for the church, rectory, garages, a parking lot and contents. The alliance planned to spend more than $1 million to convert the church — home to the first Croatian parish in America — into a historical center and shrine.
“I’m certainly disappointed, because we put a lot of work and effort in this,” said Dr. Marion Vujevich, alliance chairman. “We got the short end of the stick.”
Susan Petrick, secretary of the Preserve Croatian Heritage Foundation, also is disappointed.
“If the diocese’s true intention is to make it into a shrine, they should not consider offers from people who do not have the same intention,” she said. “I doubt that Follieri has any intention of making it into a shrine.”
PennDOT considered razing the 105-year-old church for a $130 million road-widening project, but spared it when the alliance and other groups secured a historic designation from the city.
Drawings by Astorino architects call for developing a park or Croatian village near the church, plans that would fall through if Follieri buys the church, Vujevich said.
But, said Lengwin, “We are always looking at that situation to see how we can resolve it.”
Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7828.
-
New Granada Theatre could turn a corner
C. Denise Johnson
New Pittsburgh Courier Staff Writer
October 5, 2006View all articles by C. Denise Johnson
Grop plans to bring new life to once prominent site
A single glance conjures images to bygone days of women dressed to the nines and their Jim Dandies. For some it brings backs days of daylong movie matinees. For others still, the New Granada is a constant reminder of dreams deferred.Much of recent Hill District memories evolve around loss: loss of a once-thriving neighborhood based business district and a community on the verge of prosperity. Then came urban renewal.
All of the advantages that justified the construction of the civic arena missed the Hill. Aspirations of improvement and/or expansion became as frozen as the Penguin’s playing surface; for years the Hill has been stuck in time.
The promise of rebirth springs eternal and such is the case for the New Granada.
Two years ago, the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh cited the deserted venue as one of its “Top Ten Best Preservation Opportunities, which lead to Pittsburgh City Council designated the site as a local historical landmark.
Plans are afoot to secure a national designation, says Marimba Milliones of the Hill Community Redevelopment Corp.
“The New Granada is on the itinerary for the National Trust when they hold their conference in Pittsburgh next month,” Milliones said.
In the interim a collaborative of concerned community residents along with the HCRC, YPF, artists, and architecture gather for the specific purpose of bringing new life to the prominent eyesore.
It is a painstaking process that involves structural analysis, feasibility studies and visioning groups made up of the immediate stakeholders—Hill District residents.
“The New Granada is a community icon, and we must be very deliberate in how we proceed,” said Milliones.
In the interim, there have been several efforts to spur development, said former City Councilman Sala Udin.
“There was a committee set up by the mayor’s office during Tom Murphy’s administration,” said Udin, who represented the Hill on council. “The police chief also was a part of that group.”
Part of the reason for the slower re-birth of the New Granada is the ongoing open-air drug activity along that block of Centre Avenue.
“That’s the fly in the ointment, offered Udin.
“It was acknowledged that one of the ways to promote invest and redevelopment on the Hill is to eradicate the drug trafficking. I know there was one meeting, but I’m not aware of any subsequent meetings or outcomes, Udin commented.Evan Frazier agrees. As the Executive Director of the Hill House, Frazier is keenly cognizant of the structure’s significance to the Hill.
“The New Granada is part of the Hill’s signature, so it’s important that the legacy be preserved,” observed Frazier. “Community should be flexible to make sure whatever is decided on is sustainable and attractive to investors. It should be developed to add value to the community and the region.”
Future options for the building are many and because of its size, Milliones says it could be a multi-purpose facility that could eventually become the hub of a revitalized Centre Avenue corridor.
Designed 1927 by local architect Louis Bellinger—one of the few Black architects in the country and constructed in 1928, the building was as a base for the local chapter of the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal group of Black construction workers. The structure also offered commercial and office space.
Ten years later the facility was converted in to a commercial theater by it’s then owner, Harry Hendel, who renamed the facility in light of the demise of another business venture, the original Granada situated two blocks away on Centre Avenue.
The New Granada also housed the Savoy Ballroom (a former auditorium) which opened in 1941, hosting such luminaries as Stanley Turrentine, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie, to name a few and developed a storied history as evidence by this Courier account:
“In January 1932, the Pythian Temple hosted the largest crowd in its history when the Pittsburgh Courier, the nation’s pre-eminent African-American newspaper, crowned Duke Ellington the “King of Jazz” in a concert and presentation broadcast nationally over radio station WCAE. This event shattered previous attendance records of any such event in the city and to date has never been equaled. Nearly 3,000 patrons from as far as New York City, including his mother, wife, sister and son, watched as Ellington was presented with the Courier’s “Loving Cup.” Ellington’s mother later expressed her gratitude for the event and her son’s honor to the Courier in a letter to the editor. The people of the Hill District still refer to the event as the crowning of the “King of Jazz,” and “…second to none in the annals of time of the Hill District.”
According to Milliones, the theatre’s immediate future includes a feasibility study.
“Considering how long it’s been vacant, it’s in relatively good condition aside from the need of a new roof,” she said. “We also exploring the possibility of it becoming an energy efficient, environmentally-friendly “green building.”
Funding is another challenge and is part of the reasoning for the New Granada’s inclusion on the National Trust’s radar. “A lot of the preliminary work is technical in nature, which means the need for funding.”
Members of the New Granada Theatre Committee, which Milliones co-chairs, include Robert Neu of the Kelly-Strayhorn, Hill resident and entrepreneur Williams Benton, attorney William Bercik, Cathy McCollum of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks and Chloe Velasquez of YPAP.
Milliones sees potential for a multipurpose facility based on the size of the structure.
“It’s a phenomenal building!” Milliones exclaimed.
“It represents a tremendous opportunity to add momentum to the ongoing development along the Centre Avenue corridor,” added Frazier.
-
First Baptist Church Hearing Today
September, 25, 2006
Pittsburgh, PAToday, the Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission heard testimony on the disposition of the First Baptist Church parkign lot.
Included was a letter written by Landmarks President Arthur P. Ziegler, which expressed concern about the proposed design submitted by the Elmhurst Group and Burt Hill Kosar Rittleman Associates Architects.
Below is the letter.
—
September 25, 2006
Michael Eversmeyer
Chairman
Historic Review Commission
City of Pittsburgh Department of City Planning
200 Ross Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15219Dear Mike:
I am writing on behalf of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation to oppose the design proposed by The Elmhurst Group and Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann Associates Architects for the First Baptist Church parking lot. The design does not meet the New Construction Design Criteria for the Oakland Civic Center Historic District with regard to scale, materials, massing, sitting, and details, and would have a negative impact on the adjacent Schenley Farms Federal and City Historic Districts, and on the First Baptist Church. We recommend that Elmhurst revise its design in accordance with the following:
The site should have a building that is responsive to Bertram Goodhue’s building and the mixed residential and low scale institutional character of the Bayard- Bigelow neighborhood.
The First Baptist Church is a masterful interplay of massing with projecting transepts and a lower scaled parish hall along Bayard with a gabled end perpendicular to the main church. The new building should be designed with asymmetrical massing and detailing.
The setback from Bigelow should be the same as the parish house – this setback is standard for the houses on the north side of the street and this setback has been followed by all new buildings on the south side of the street. The setback from Ruskin should be in line with Ruskin Hall. Minor projections into the setback area, similar in scale to the porches and terraces on the houses on the north side of Bigelow should be incorporated into the design to offer the variation in massing that is an element of the character of this district.
The height should not exceed 55’ on the northern 2/3 of the site. This is the height of the cornice line of the church and the height of the two newer buildings proceeding west along Bigelow. The southern third of the site, from a line projected from the ridge of the church back to the south property line adjoining the Ruskin might be allowed to extend to 85’, the height of the ridge line, if handled expertly. The proposed design is grossly out-of-scale with the adjacent buildings.
Landmarks does not object to erecting a building on this site; indeed Bertram Goodhue designed one for precisely this site. In 2003 Landmarks commissioned a schematic architectural design for this site illustrating how one might place a compatible new building next to the church, taking into account the unexecuted Goodhue building and the character of the neighborhood. 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. A copy of the schematic design we commissioned is enclosed.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr.
PresidentAPZ/sjw