Category Archive: Property for Sale
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Charleroi’s Historic Goaziou Shop to Reopen With Tours, Open House
By Ron Paglia
FOR THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, July 18, 2010One of the community’s oldest and most historic buildings will be the focus of attention Monday when the official reopening of The Goaziou Shop is celebrated beginning at noon.
The open house, presented by the Charleroi Area Historical Society, will run until 3:30 p.m. at the site at 807 Fallowfield Ave. and is open to the public. Light refreshments will be served, and tours of the building will be available.
The Goaziou Shop, in Charleroi’s historic district, was the commercial print shop and residence of the late Franco-American Louis Goaziou, a union socialist and main advocate for the North American Co-Masonry movement, for which the first charter was established in Charleroi.
The building, which opened at the turn of the last century, also housed a printing shop owned and operated for many years by Herb Goaziou.
The building’s accommodations for disabled visitors are made available through a grant from the Washington County Tourism and Promotion Agency.
Regular visiting hours at The Goaziou Shop are from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday and Friday.
Additional information is available at the historical society’s administration office and the Genealogy and History Research Center at 608 Fallowfield Ave., 724-483-2030, or The Goaziou Shop, 724-483-4961.
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Macy’s Puts Historic Downtown Building Up For Sale
By Kim Leonard and Sam Spatter, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The clock outside the Macy's store has lasted longer than the name above the door of the Downtown fixture, which in 1885 became home to a store doing business as Kaufmann Brothers. Justin Merriman | Tribune-Review
Macy’s is putting its historic, 13-story Downtown store on the selling block, with plans to lease back part of the space.
The department store chain didn’t name an asking price for the landmark that fills a block on Smithfield Street, between Forbes and Fifth avenues. Macy’s retail operations fill 10 floors, and offices are on part of a separate floor.
Macy’s Inc. has been considering its options for the Downtown building — which was the flagship store of Kaufmann’s for most of its history — during the past year or two, spokesman Jim Sluzewski said Wednesday.
“Our initial goal is to sell the building, and then lease back the space we need for a store and offices,” he said. If that can’t be done, Macy’s could find tenants for unused or now-underused space in the building, he said.
Sluzewski said the amount of space Macy’s retains in the building will “depend on discussions with a potential buyer.”
Commercial real estate firm Cassidy Turley of St. Louis is marketing the store, which has 750,000 square feet of space, nearly 14 football fields.
Macy’s is jumping into the Downtown real estate market at a time when other major buildings also are for sale — Gateway Center, the Henry W. Oliver Building, EQT Tower, the Regional Enterprise Center and the Red Cross Building.
“The Downtown Pittsburgh market is extremely active now and is attracting a lot of interest,” said Pat Sentner, a principal with real estate firm NAI Pittsburgh Commercial.
The department store chain’s intent to lease part of the building makes it attractive to buyers, he said. But what’s important is how much space the retailer wants, and for how long, he said.
“If 75 percent or more of the building is part of the leaseback arrangement, that could attract an institutional type of investor” such as an investment group or foundation, Sentner said. If Macy’s wants half the space or less, a corporation or law firm might want to buy the building and use most of it for offices, he said.
Preserving the store in some form is key to keeping Downtown healthy and vibrant, observers said.
“It’s important to keep Macy’s Downtown and continue it as a retailer of excellent merchandise,” said Mike Edwards, president of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. “I’ve seen it in other cities. Department store owners are retailers who don’t want to own real estate.”
Retail expert C. Britt Beemer said Macy’s closed stores in several downtown areas in recent years. “Pittsburgh is fortunate to have one, and it’s good to maintain downtown stores — they have a history and a sense of integrity.”
“Department stores used to be major property owners in many cities. Now they’re mainly tenants in malls and shopping centers,” said Beemer of America’s Research Group in Charleston, S.C.
Cincinnati-based Macy’s owns 469 of its 850 Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s stores. Spokesman Sluzewski said Macy’s always is looking to maximize its use of space in stores. The company maintains many downtown stores, he said, citing 15 other examples.
Patricia Edwards of Storehouse Partners LLC in Seattle said department store chains, especially in the rough economy of recent years, “are really trying to make sure each individual store is profitable, as opposed to just the chain itself.”
In September 2006, Macy’s kicked off its new presence Downtown and elsewhere in the region with a block party on Smithfield Street. It promised to keep the landmark corner clock at Smithfield and Fifth, the Tic Toc restaurant on the first floor, holiday events and other favorite Kaufmann’s features.
Still, Duquesne University marketing professor Audrey Guskey said shoppers in the region gave Macy’s a lukewarm reception.
“A lot of people were disappointed in the quality of merchandise, the service and the hours,” she said. “Also, Macy’s goal was to become a national department store, and they were very cookie-cutter — the Pittsburgh stores were like Cleveland, L.A. and Chicago.” Macy’s since then has been tailoring merchandise to various regions’ tastes, Guskey added.
In the past three decades, Downtown has lost four department stores, including a Lord and Taylor department store next to the Macy’s building.
Macy’s sales nationwide last year totaled $23.5 billion, down 5.6 percent from 2008. The company’s profit was $350 million, after a $4.8 billion loss in 2008.
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Key dates:• 1877: Brothers Jacob and Isaac Kaufmann open a four-story store at Smithfield Street and what now is Forbes
Avenue, moving their tailoring business from the South Side.
• 1885: Store becomes Kaufmann Brothers, filling a block between Forbes and Fifth avenues.
• 1913: Another expansion brings the store to 12 stories.
• 1946: May Department Stores Inc. acquires Kaufmann’s.
• 1955: A 10-story addition on the store’s Fifth Avenue side is built, along with a parking garage.
• 2002: May closes Kaufmann’s headquarters on the Downtown store’s upper floors. About 1,200 jobs are lost.
• 2005: Macy’s parent, Federated Department Stores Inc., buys May company.
• 2006: Kaufmann’s and department stores in other cities that were part of May are changed to the Macy’s name.
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Historic Old Stone Tavern in Pittsburgh’s West End Awaits New Life
By Tony LaRussa
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, July 12, 2010
The Old Stone Tavern is believed to have served as a tollhouse and frontier trading post. It likely played a role in the Whiskey Rebellion, the late 18th-century uprising against a federal excise tax on liquor. Joe Appel | Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
It’s hard to see the building at the crossroads of Greentree Road and Woodville Avenue in the West End as anything but just another of the city’s many aged, vacant properties waiting for its date with a wrecking ball.
But some people are looking beyond the broken windows, peeling siding and thick ivy snaking up the sides. They see a gem.
Late last year, city officials ensured that whatever the future holds for the centuries-old building known as the Old Stone Tavern, its designation as a historic structure will prevent it from being torn down. The Historic Review Commission must give permission before an owner can alter its exterior.
Research done during the historic designation nominating process points to the likelihood that the tavern is the region’s second-oldest building, behind the Fort Pitt Blockhouse built in 1764 in what is now Point State Park.
This is the bar area of the Old Stone Tavern in the West End, which was designated a historic structure last year, protecting it from destruction. Joe Appel | Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
“It’s almost certainly the oldest commercial structure in the region,” said Michael Shealey, an architect who conducted much of the research.
The Old Stone Tavern is located at a bend in what was the historic Washington and Pittsburgh Turnpike, a toll road connecting Pittsburgh to Washington County and National Road. It is believed to have served as a tollhouse and frontier trading post and likely played a role in the Whiskey Rebellion, the late 18th-century uprising against a federal excise tax on liquor.
Despite the 1752 date chiseled into a cornerstone, evidence points to the structure’s construction in the early 1780s, Shealey said.
“We always knew it was very old, but never imagined it dated back as far as it apparently does,” said Norene Beatty, who testified at a public hearing in support of the historic designation. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see it restored and used as a rustic tavern like you would find in Colonial Williamsburg?”
An apparently original fireplace has been uncovered at the Old Stone Tavern at the crossroads of Greentree Road and Woodville Avenue in the West End. The structure is believed to be the second oldest in the City of Pittsburgh. Joe Appel | Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Yet even though historic designation protects the building, it does not require someone to restore it.
Historic buildings can qualify for state and federal grants and tax credits, but the best hope for restoration lies in identifying a commercial use for the property, said Arthur Ziegler, president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which supported the nomination.
“Protecting the building was an important first step,” said Ziegler.
Diana Poliziani of Crafton Heights, whose family has owned businesses in the West End for 50 years, hopes the building is “put to good use.”
“I think the business district is going to explode in the next couple of years, and a historic building like that should be part of what happens,” she said.
John DiSantis, a former Historic Review Commission member who nominated the building for historic designation, said its preservation is important to the fabric of the community.
“When you’re talking about something this old, it really doesn’t matter how long it takes before something is done with it,” he said. “The key to me is that what exists now has been preserved.”
Lee Harris bought the old tavern last year, intending to tear it down to expand the adjacent masonry business started by his father.
“I knew it was one of the oldest buildings in the neighborhood, but I didn’t really know it had such historic significance,” he said.
Harris said that although people who pushed for the historic designation “were well-meaning,” it made doing business during a sour economy that much more difficult.
“I bought the place because I needed more space,” he said. “Now that I can’t tear it down, it’s really not much use to me.”
Harris didn’t fight the historic designation, took steps to keep the building from deteriorating further, and provided access to those interested in studying the structure. He estimates it would cost $250,000 to $500,000 to restore the tavern’s exterior and refurbish its interior, depending on the scope of the work.
He said he would consider selling the tavern and surrounding property, including the buildings he uses for his business, for a fair price and the cost of relocating if someone presented a development proposal.
Coming up with possible uses for the Old Stone Tavern is part of a master plan being developed with a $150,000 state grant extended to the nonprofit West End Partnership for Development.
“We’d love to see that area developed, so we can tie both sides of the West End together,” said Lou Bucci, the organization’s chairman. “Unfortunately, our organization doesn’t have the kind of money needed to take on a project like that. We’re hoping that as things improve economically, one of the foundations or a private developer will show some interest. We’d certainly do what we can to support them.”
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Carnegie Catholic Church May Get $7.1M Renewal
By Jeffrey Widmer
TRIBUNE-REVIEW NEWS SERVICE
Thursday, July 8, 2010The old St. Luke’s Church in Carnegie might gain new life.
The Carnegie planning commission last month approved plans to renovate the red brick church at Third Street and Third Avenue. It closed after being ravaged by flooding caused by Hurricane Ivan in September 2004.
It would reopen as the official center of the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish, though council must approve the plans.
According to information provided by the Rev. David Poecking in St. Luke’s June 13 bulletin, the parish hopes to have a final draft before the end of July.
The church estimates that the project will cost about $7.1 million; about $500,000 of that has been paid for, according to Poecking.
The parish has $3.4 million more for the project, leaving $3.2 million to be covered through a combination of further insurance payouts from the 2004 flood, the sale of Seton Hall in Carnegie and St. Ignatius in Scott, and a fund-raising campaign, Poecking said.
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YMCA Posts Big Plans for the Hill
By Adam Brandolph
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, July 9, 2010A day after community officials announced they had struck a deal to bring a grocery store to the Hill District, residents on Thursday were pleased to hear that the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh plans to break ground on a nearby facility this fall.
“I think it’s a very good thing for the community,” said Franklin A. Reed, 75, a longtime Hill District resident. “This is something we very much need.”
The $11 million project includes both the renovation of the YMCA’s facility on Centre Avenue and construction of the Thelma Lovett Family YMCA, a 43,000-square-foot facility that will offer recreation, family support services, youth programs and activities for senior citizens. The new center, named after the lifelong Hill District activist, will include an indoor track, a gymnasium, aquatics center with a four-lane pool, a wellness center, multipurpose and senior space, a teen room and a computer lab.
“The new facility will provide the Hill District neighborhoods with a vital, family-centered hub for social, physical and developmental activity, as well as continue the revitalization of the Centre Avenue corridor,” Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said in a written statement. “With a new arena, library, and soon to be YMCA and grocery store, we are rebuilding the Hill District and providing jobs and opportunities to its residents.”
The city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority yesterday approved selling 18 lots to the nonprofit for $237,500.
Richard J. Perallo, vice president of facilities and construction for the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh, said construction of the center should take about 15 months. Fundraising for the project has been ongoing, with about $13 million raised, said Bill Jones, the YMCA’s senior vice president and chief financial officer.
“Organizations like the YMCA provide critical care and physical health resources to families, children and residents of the Hill District,” City Councilman R. Daniel Lavelle, whose district includes the Hill, said in a written statement. “These public private partnerships help form the solid foundation of support to our community. When we all work together, we are all better for it.”
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Run-Down to Rental, a House At a Time – Sheraden Woman Believes in Saving Her Own Streets
Wednesday, June 30, 2010By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Kelly Carter and Ben Smith work in the kitchen of their latest home remodeling project on Francisco Street in Sheraden. The couple have renovated five homes in eight years in their neighborhood and now rent the properties.
Kelly Carter had no idea what she was getting into. She just knew that the apartment building beside her childhood home was in disrepair and that a slumlord had his eye on it.When it came up for sale in 2001, she grabbed it. She was 29.
“I paid $30,000 and put $30,000 into it,” she said. “The person I bought it from told me I would never get quality renters.”
Today, she and her partner, Ben Smith, are renovating the fifth house Ms. Carter has bought on Canopolis and Francisco, two parallel streets in Sheraden. She has filled four with tenants she said she has either recruited or found online.
Sheraden has taken its lumps in recent years. Besides the nine arson fires that bedeviled Merwyn Avenue last summer, the neighborhood has watched itself lose more and more control of properties that fall into the hands of individuals who rent carelessly or speculating corporations that buy properties and sit on them.
“What we want is for houses that look haunted to be houses you’d be proud to live beside,” Ms. Carter said. “You have to recruit good tenants.”
Ms. Carter’s philosophy is that, block by block, street by street, neighbors can hold onto or enhance the livability of the entire neighborhood.
“If 50 people each did one [house per neighborhood], it would have a huge impact,” she said.
Buying and renovating houses has become her full-time job. She was the owner of Milk Records, a business she opened in 1999 and operated first Downtown and then in the Strip. She now runs the business online and spends most of her days refinishing floors, cleaning walls and talking to electrical contractors.
“Some people have given her a hard time, like, ‘why bother, etc. etc,’ ” said her neighbor, Janine Berard. “But she’s a wonderful person with such a great cause, especially for someone in her age bracket to have an interest in preserving a neighborhood.”
“There are naysayers,” said neighbor John Roell, “but there are naysayers everywhere. Kelly is an asset to the neighborhood.”
Ms. Carter said that Sheraden doesn’t have the commercial or entertainment draws like some of the other city neighborhoods, so they have to promote the community on its housing stock.
“And it’s great housing stock,” she added.
“Neighborhoods like ours are diamonds in rough,” said Ms. Berard. “They just need a little elbow grease and TLC. Who wouldn’t want to have that over houses that are boarded up? On our block, there is one vacant house and it has been vandalized twice. The only vacant house on our block has turned into exactly what we feared it would.”
Ms. Berard said that one family got six letters from companies looking to buy their property after the occupant died.
“Many properties in our neighborhood are owned by holding companies that owe back taxes two, three, four years.”
Neighbor Shirley Johnson has lived for 16 years in the house beside Ms. Carter’s childhood home and has teamed up with her on several projects, including writing a successful proposal to get a Sprout Fund mural in Sheraden.
“Somebody had approached me concerned about property values going down,” said Ms. Johnson, “and one day Kelly and I had a conversation in my driveway. I said, ‘That’s me and you and this third person, so maybe we can get more people involved.’ We started a group that didn’t really have a name.
“At a meeting when we were generating ideas, she said, ‘Maybe I can help people do what I’m doing.’
“She’s finding people who are able to pay the rent and do their part in our little community,” said Ms. Johnson. “There’s no trouble on the street.”
Ms. Carter said that is her intention, to begin “training people who want to do this on their block.”
With her first homes, she said, “I was saving and scrimping along as I could. This fifth one is the first one that’s backed by a bank.”
The house she grew up in she rented to an attorney who she said has decided he wants to buy it. The house next door that was in disrepair — and had a big hole in the roof — has two tenants, including Ms. Carter’s mother.
“The one I am doing now I got it for $15,000, but I joke that what I paid for was the stained glass windows and the garage,” said Ms. Carter. “It needed a new roof and new everything.
“This will be a rental. It’s been easier to find good renters than owners at this point, but I can sell properties as the neighborhood improves.”
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Heidelberg Offers Help With Spacious, Affordable Homes
Thursday, June 24, 2010Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
- Heidelberg Mayor Kenneth LaSota, at podium, and Richard Ranii, Allegheny County Economic Development Housing manager, speak during the dedication of two new homes in Heidelberg. Robin Rombach/Post-Gazette
Tom Wiater, senior construction manager for Action Housing, had the proud look of a new parent Monday afternoon as visitors toured his nearly 2,000-square-foot “baby” at 478 Grant Ave. in Heidelberg.
The guests nodded approvingly at the spacious rooms, walk-in closet and outdoor wooden deck of the newly completed house.
It and its “sister” house, an almost identical home built next door, didn’t follow the typical pattern of being constructed by a private developer who would sell the home on the open market.
They are among four single-family homes built on Grant Avenue as part of a redevelopment program that allows municipalities that suffered flood damage during Hurricane Ivan in 2004 to identify sites outside of the 100-year flood plain that were in need of redevelopment.
They were built through a cooperative effort by Allegheny County, Heidelberg and Action Housing, an agency that works with the county to make housing options available for people with household incomes at or below 80 percent of local median income.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating completion of the last two homes was attended by county and borough officials and by local residents, who toured the homes and listened to speakers who extolled the virtues of the joint housing program.
All four homes have been sold.
Dennis Davin, director of the county Department of Economic Development, said the program to build the new homes would not have come about without the cooperation of Heidelberg.
“These will help to revitalize the community,” Mr. Davin said.
The main commitment Heidelberg made to the project, he said, was a no-interest loan to Action Housing.
The agency then contracted with Jad Contracting Inc. of Findlay to build the homes. When the closings on all the properties are completed, Action Housing will pay back the borough’s loan. The houses were built on vacant lots that were not generating real-estate tax revenues.
The homes dedicated on Monday sold for $110,000 each. Each home features three bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, a full basement, one-car garage, a fully equipped kitchen with energy saving appliances and an energy-efficient heating and air-conditioning system.
The homes also were built with double-pane windows and adequate insulation to meet energy conservation guidelines for new construction, Mr. Wiater said.
“It’s a nice program. It’s good to see young families able to afford to buy a home,” he said.
Mark and Beth Zyra are in the process of buying the house at 478 Grant Ave., while Brianne Kinney is purchasing the house next door. The houses sold quickly, said borough manager Joe Kauer. Both buyers were on the waiting list from the previous sale of the homes at 602 and 604 Grant Ave., Mr. Kauer said.
Heidelberg Mayor Kenneth LaSota touted the program as a way to rejuvenate the housing stock in Heidelberg, which this year marks its 108th year as a borough and has some houses that are even older than the borough.
He said Heidelberg does have one big advantage over development in newer communities, though.
“The infrastructure is already available,” he said.
The mayor added that by filling and reusing lots in older communities like Heidelberg, there is no need to consume farmland or to promote urban sprawl.
“Heidelberg is a developer’s dream,” he said.
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Vacant Houses Spur Art Initiative in Wilkinsburg
Thursday, June 10, 2010By Deborah M. Todd, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteWhen Wilkinsburg artist Lazae LaSpina noticed bright neon swirls of abstract art decorating boards used to shutter the North Side’s vacant Garden Theater, she saw an opportunity to spruce up blighted properties in her own neighborhood.
“I could tell people cared about that area,” she said. “In Wilkinsburg, with all of the abandoned properties in that area, I thought that would be a good idea if we did something similar.”
Originally conceived as a small neighborhood project in May 2009, Ms. LaSpina’s idea has grown into a plan that will not only beautify the homes, but could potentially establish the community as a haven for artists. The Whitney Avenue Art Gallery “Houses in Waiting” project kicked off May 28 with a youth orientation event at Hosanna House.
Funded by the Wilkinsburg Weed and Seed, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Wilkinsburg Municipal Authority and the Wilkinsburg Development Authority, the project’s goal is to recruit community members to paint plywood window covers for 10 to 12 vacant houses on Whitney Avenue’s’s 700 block — transforming the space to what organizers call an “outdoor gallery.”
But if the idea catches on the way Ms. LaSpina and Wilkinsburg officials hope it will, the project will spearhead a push to promote the properties for sale as well as programs available for potential homeowners.
“The theme ‘Houses in Waiting’ intends the board-up art to act as a placeholder while interest is generated for a wide spectrum of home buyers to invest in the neighborhood and take advantage of Wilkinsburg’s ten-year property tax abatement program,” reads the WAAG web site.
The initiative also has potential to bring neighbors in the Hamnett Place community together to collaborate behind a common theme for the artwork. Volunteers are split up into youth and adult groups where professional artists help lead discussion and activities to determine themes.
Artist Ernest Bey, whose work includes elaborate wood carvings created for the Garden Dreams Nursery on Holland Avenue, said he looks forward to speaking to youth about the project.
“I want to challenge students, who are going to be becoming the lead artists on this project. I want their input,” he said. “Because when you involve young people, they come up with something you totally didn’t anticipate.”
Multimedia artist Kate Joranson said she will encourage adult volunteers to observe the environment around the houses to come up with ideas for themes.
“Boarded up buildings and abandoned sites can evoke a lot of emotion,” she said. “I want to try to collect those stories through writing, drawings, maybe collect small objects.”
With the window covers painted and primed, workshops scheduled throughout the month and a grand opening event scheduled for July, organizers are optimistic the initiative will help residents see the community in a new way.
Councilwoman Vanessa McCarthy-Johnson said she hopes the initiative can grow to include more of Ms. LaSpina’s ideas, such as artists in residence and community parties to promote the site. But she said the initial start is more than enough to spark additional improvements in the neighborhood.
“It gives a sense of value instead of devastation to the properties in the neighborhood. People will look at where they live a little different,” she said.
They’ll see its not just an abandoned house, it can be just about anything you want it to be.”