Category Archive: Threatened Historic Resources
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Historic status sought for Nabisco
By Sandra Tolliver
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, June 14, 2004As factories go, the Nabisco bakery in East Liberty was a trend-setter, built to advertise the quality of the packaged cookies and crackers that helped foster America’s fondness for convenience foods.
The brown brick building, with Mellon Park as its front lawn, dominates two blocks in East Liberty. It is a neighborhood landmark that provided thousands of Pittsburghers with careers before its closing by Nabisco in 1998 and, after a four-year revival by Bake-Line Group, again this spring.Now the Young Preservationists Association has nominated the building for historic designation by the city’s Historic Review Commission. The structure is part of Pittsburgh’s industrial past and stirs sentimental memories for residents who awoke to the smell of cookies baking, one group member said.
“When Nabisco was there, I’d walk out of my house in the mornings and go, ‘Wow, if only the whole city could smell like this,'” said Miriam Meislick, who lived a block away. “You’d walk around hungry all day.”
The designation must be approved by the city’s Historic Review Commission and Planning Department, along with city council. Though the nomination has just been filed, Maria Thomas Burgwin, of the Planning Department’s historic preservation staff, said the factory meets five of the 10 criteria for historic structures. It must meet only one in order to qualify for the designation. If the designation were approved, the Nabisco plant would join 68 other buildings designated as historic by the city.
“Most buildings like this are just overlooked. We take them for granted. When there’s been a lot of extra thought and detail put into a building like this, we should notice,” said Lu Donnelly, a historian and adviser to the Young Preservationists.
The Regional Industrial Development Corp. bought the building after Nabisco’s departure and does not want historic designation to limit its options for the site, said Bill Widdoes, project manager.
“If for some reason there’s a use or proposed use that comes in that requires the building to be demolished, it would prohibit that,” Widdoes said. “We don’t have any such plans now, but if that kind of use comes along, we couldn’t pursue that. Right now, we need all our options.”
Arthur Ziegler, president of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, said his organization supports the Nabisco nomination.
“It’s a handsome plant, in a prime location, and we are very much hoping that a new use will be found for it,” Ziegler said. “The listing would at least give us all a chance to comment on future plans and draw public attention to it.”
National Biscuit Company built its Pittsburgh plant in 1918 as part of a nationwide expansion that followed successful branding of its products. Nabisco hired an in-house architect because the company’s president, Adolphus Green, wanted his factories to have style and dignity that would inspire worker loyalty, Donnelly said.
Architect Albert G. Zimmermann’s Nabisco designs were featured in American Architect magazine in 1912 and 1916.
“If you think about factories at that time period, most of them were big, red brick mill buildings with no decorative style, just utilitarian,” Donnelly said.
The Nabisco plant had showers and locker rooms for employees, fireproof stairways, and large windows providing natural light. The original building stands seven stories, with two eight-story towers. Additions were built in 1928 and 1948.
The factory is among dozens of buildings in Western Pennsylvania identified by the Young Preservationists as potentially historic. The group, formed in 2002, has more than 50 members. Its vision is “a future in which young people are at the helm of historic preservation,” according to its Web site.
“It just seems like there’s so many people now who don’t really seem to care about saving our historic buildings, who say, ‘It looks kind of old. Let’s just demolish it and put up a subdivision,'” said Sean Capperis, an intern with the group. “I grew up in a subdivision, and it’s so sterile.”
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Criteria for historic designation
A building must meet at least one of 10 criteria to receive historic designation from the city:
1. Location at a significant historic or prehistoric site.2. Identification with one or more people who significantly contributed to the cultural, historic, architectural, archaeological or related aspects of the city, state, region or country.*
3. Exemplification of a distinguished or unique architectural type, style or design.*
4. Identification as the work of an architect, designer, engineer or builder whose work is historically significant.*
5. Exemplification of important planning and urban design techniques.
6. Location as a site of an important archaeological resource.
7. Association with important cultural or social aspects or events in history.*
8. Exemplification of neighborhood development or settlement significant to cultural history or traditions.
9. Representation of a cultural, historic, architectural, archaeological or related theme expressed through distinctive areas, properties, sites, structures or objects.
10. Unique location and distinctive physical appearance represents an established and familiar visual feature.*
* Criteria touted for Nabisco plant
Source: City of Pittsburgh Department of Planning
Sandra Tolliver can be reached at stolliver@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7840.
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End may be near for H. Samson
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Tuesday, April 27, 2004For 145 years, the H. Samson Funeral Home has served a Pittsburgh clientele that includes the city’s most prominent, historic and best-known families — Heinz, Mellon, Scaife, Hunt and Hillman, to name a few.
Soon, Samson itself could become history, if plans to sell the funeral home property are completed.Possible uses for the property, at 537 N. Neville St., Oakland, include housing, possibly condominiums.
A spokeswoman for Samson’s owner, the Cincinnati-based Alderwoods Group, confirmed Monday that a deal to sell the property is pending.
“The property currently is under a conditional contract at this time, but no deal has been finalized so we can’t disclose any terms,” said Tamara Malone.
The county values the property at $1.26 million.
If Samson does close, Malone said, its business will be transferred to Alderwoods’ two other local funeral homes: the more than 100-year-old H.P. Brandt Funeral Home in the Perrysville section of Ross and the Burton Hirsch Funeral Home in Squirrel Hill.
What is certain is the pedigree of the business, founded in 1859 by undertaker Hudson Samson, a Pulaski, N.Y., native who moved here at the age of 19.
“Hudson was an innovator who made strides to be in the forefront of the funeral service business,” said Heather Rady, the funeral director at Samson. “And the reason the funeral home became so prominent, I believe, was the caring, compassionate nature of the Samson family. They were very much involved in the community and established a rapport with many people.”
“In their heyday, they probably were the most prominent funeral home in the city,” said Kermit D. Dyer of Monroeville, who served as funeral director at Samson from 1954 to 1977. He recalls the names of such famous Pittsburgh personalities as Rosey Rowswell, who preceded Bob Prince as the voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates; Hall of Fame Pirates third baseman Pie Traynor; and William Larimer Jones, of Jones & Laughlin Steel, among those whose funeral arrangements were handled there.
“I can still see people lined clear up Neville Street to see Rosey Rowswell,” said Dyer.
“They had a really good reputation of being the creme de la creme of funeral homes,” said Rose Carfagna Au of Ralph Schugar Chapel Inc., and a board member of the Allegheny County Funeral Directors Association.
According to the firm’s history, Samson’s original location was on the site of the old post office building at Smithfield Street in the heart of the city’s Golden Triangle. There, beginning in 1859, Samson ran a one-man operation, making his own coffins and then hitching up a horse to deliver them to homes or cemeteries.
After a short time operating at another location on Seventh Avenue, Samson eventually moved in 1884 to a new building at 433 Sixth Ave., which is believed to be the first structure in the United States built exclusively for a funeral home. It housed, among other things, the first crematory installed within a municipality in the nation, and a chapel, now a standard funeral home feature.
The three-story building “was the expression of remarkable imagination and foresight for the year 1884, and many architects and morticians from other cities came to Pittsburgh to examine the facilities and consult with the owner,” according to the company’s Internet site. “There were also living quarters for employees who remained on call 24 hours a day.”
After Samson’s death in 1902, the business was passed to his son, Harry G. Samson, who moved the funeral home to North Neville Street in 1922. The move to “an attractive residential area with the quiet of wide, tree-shaded lawns” was made to escape the growing congestion Downtown, the company said.
The property, which consists of two buildings connected by a glass-enclosed walkway, can be likened to a mid-Victorian Italian villa, according to Walter Kidney, historian for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
Through most of its years, the business was in Samson family hands, with Harry’s son, Howard, taking control after Harry’s death in 1948. Howard’s wife, Elinor, assumed responsibility when he died in 1974.
Other innovations pioneered by the family included the first motorized funeral hearse to be used in Pittsburgh, in 1910. In later years, the business also owned a private plane that was used to transport the deceased from other locations back to Pittsburgh, Rady said.
Family involvement ended with Elinor’s death in 1995. The business was transferred to another family-owned funeral home organization, CMS West, owned by the Stoecklein family.
In 1997, Samson was among six funeral homes and about 35 cemeteries sold by CMS to the Loewen Group International of Canada. Loewen declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1999 and in 2002 emerged as the reorganized company known as Alderwoods Group.
Alderwoods is the second-largest operator of funeral homes and cemeteries in North America, behind Service Corporation International of Houston. As of January, Alderwoods operated 730 funeral homes, 150 cemeteries and 60 combination funeral home-cemeteries in the United States and Canada.
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Mighty Samson
The H. Samson Funeral Home has handled funeral arrangements for the following families and individuals:
Heinz (H.J. Heinz Co.)Mellon (Mellon Bank)
Hunt (Alcoa Inc.)
Scaife (philanthropy)
Jones (Jones & Laughlin Steel)
Hillman (Hillman Co.)
Richard S. Caliguiri (Pittsburgh mayor)
Pie Traynor (Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman)
Rosey Rowswell (Pirates announcer)
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
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A crown jewel where a duke and count played
By Tony LaRussa
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, April 8, 2004Historic preservationists have taken the first steps toward protecting the famed New Granada Theater, on Centre Avenue in the Hill District, from demolition or major alterations.
Built in 1927, the building is the principal surviving work of Louis Arnett Stuart Bellinger, an important African-American architect. Only a few of Bellinger’s buildings survive today.“Even though the New Granada has been closed for decades, people still talk about it,” said Esther L. Bush, chief executive of the Urban League of Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh’s seven-member Historic Review Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to proceed with the process of designating the New Granada Theater as a City of Pittsburgh Historic Structure — a measure proposed by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
A series of public hearings by the Historic Review Commission, the city Planning Commission and City Council must be conducted before council can vote on granting the designation.
“The New Granada is not only a part of Pittsburgh’s cultural heritage, it has the potential of being part of this city’s future,” Bush said. “If it’s developed, it can become another cultural attraction.”The theater was built as the Pythian Temple, a lodge for a group of African-American construction workers known as the Knights of Pythias. In the 1930s, the building was sold to the owner of the Granada Theatre, located several blocks up on Centre Avenue. When the movie house was moved to the current location, the word “new” was tacked onto the marquee.
In its heyday, the 11,341-square-foot New Granada Theatre was a major draw for live entertainment and movies. Jazz greats Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington performed there.
“The building is in very bad shape,” said Mulugetta Birru, executive director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority. “It’s going to take a lot of money to rehab it.”
Representatives of Hill Community Development Corp., which owns the theater, could not be reached for comment.
Councilman Sala Udin, whose district includes the Hill, said the designation could be a draw for proposed redevelopment along several blocks of Centre Avenue.
“Obviously it will take a developer with some vision to turn that theater into something that is commercially successful,” Udin said.
Udin said he believes a mix of new housing, storefronts and restored buildings could help revive the neighborhood.
“I would like to see the storefronts built so we can consolidate the businesses in the area and create some momentum outward,” he said.
Efforts to develop the area stalled last year after a Las Vegas developer selected by the city failed to deliver on a master plan for the proposed project.
Tony LaRussa can be reached at tlarussa@tribweb.com.
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School closings can be historic treasure trove
By Ruth Ann Dailey
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Monday, March 29, 2004Buy low, sell high. That’s the rule of thumb if you want to make a profit. But when the commodity you’re selling belongs to the taxpayers — who may not want you to sell in the first place — you’re undertaking a dicey enterprise.
That’s the situation the Pittsburgh school district finds itself in. District leaders have proposed — again — to close some of the half-empty schools draining the public till.
The financial logic of their choice is irrefutable. The district pays to operate space that isn’t used — and won’t be, unless patterns of the last four decades suddenly reverse themselves and suburbanites pour into the city. With nearly a third more classroom space than is needed, which buildings should the district close?
Parents are pleading to preserve schools in their own neighborhoods, and officials have promised to move judiciously. But there are other factors besides public outcry to consider in deciding which buildings to ax — real estate values, history and architectural significance, to name a few.
But officials know that; they’ve done this thing before.
Among the huge list of school district real estate sales — available at the Recorder of Deeds office — is the listing for the North Side’s old Latimer School. The district sold this building to a development group in 1983 for $231,000. Now known as The School House, the imposing 40-unit apartment building has been resold twice since then — most recently in 1999 for a little less than its assessed value of $3.5 million.
From $231,000 to $3.5 million is a heck of a climb — even when you factor in renovation costs. In 1986, just a few years after it was sold, the Latimer School was added to the National Register of Historic Places — part of a formidable undertaking by local preservationists. By late 1987, according to the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, 48 other district schools had been placed on the register — including Schiller Classical Academy (just north of the former Heinz plant) and Beltzhoover Elementary School (southeast of the Liberty Tubes).
Though Schiller was slated for closing in the district’s circa 2000 effort, protests bought it a reprieve. Last fall it was the only North Side middle school to out-perform the state’s “needs improvement” list. Now it turns away eager transfer students. Because of (despite?) its attractive Art Deco auditorium and prime location near both the Penn Brewery and North Catholic High School, Schiller’s not on this year’s closing list.
Beautiful Beltzhoover is. With its commanding presence high above the city, a private-sector transformation is easy to imagine. But the same attributes that appeal to loft dwellers make the building ideal for young children. Its rooms — much more spacious than those in the nearby schools to which many of Beltzhoover’s students have been reassigned — are large enough to hold things like special story corners.
Its halls held the last school carnival when rainy skies pushed it indoors, says Patricia Grandy, librarian since 1973. “We’d hate to see it close.”
Whether the school district targets Beltzhoover for education or for real estate development, there’s gold in them thar halls — and taxpayers who own it.
(Ruth Ann Dailey is a Post-Gazette staff writer and can be reached at rdailey@post-gazette.com.)
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Church had roots in city’s black community
By Jim Ritchie
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, March 14, 2004The Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District has been a cornerstone of Pittsburgh’s black community since shortly after the Civil War.
Ebenezer Baptist, the first black Baptist congregation in Western Pennsylvania to own a church building, has been a driving force in the nation’s civil right’s movement.
“It’s hard for me to think of a church more significant in the African-American community,” said Arthur Ziegler Jr., president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
Ebenezer Baptist dates to 1875 when the congregation was formed. The congregation bought a church from the Presbyterians in 1906, and moved about 1930 to the current site at 2001 Wylie Ave.
Its role in the civil rights movement was highlighted by its hosting of the National Urban League’s annual conference in 1932. Later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his first visit.
It was the site of other firsts, too. In 1923, it started using a bus, called the gospel wagon, to drive church members with physical limitations to services — the first black church to do so in the nation, according to Manford Sales, the church’s senior deacon.
Sales says it also was the first black church to install an elevator. That came in 1965.
“Our church is important,” he said. “We’ve only had 10 ministers there.”
The church survived a fire in January 1976 that caused $300,000 in damage to the building, just three years after the Rev. Dr. J. Van Alfred Winsett, the current pastor, arrived at Ebenezer Baptist.
In one way or another, the church has touched many lives.
“My dad went to Ebenezer Baptist and used to sing in the choir over there,” said Tim Stevens, the president of the NAACP Pittsburgh Branch. “When I saw the fire (Saturday) morning, the first thing I thought of was my dad.”
Today, the church operates an 11-story senior high-rise, a $5.4 million building with 101 apartments. It also operates its own personal care home and a million dollar Christian life center.
The church is the main meeting spot for numerous community programs, including Head Start, Alcoholics Anonymous, and all scouting groups.
It has a choir, ministers to prisoners, helps students obtain scholarships and learn with the help of mentors. Each year, it reaches out to youngsters through an 11-week summer academy.
“That church was used by so many people,” said Winsett, the church’s senior pastor.
Winsett is heard weekly on Christian radio stations WGBN, Pittsburgh, and WDIG in Steubenville, Ohio. A new sound and video system was installed recently in the church to display scriptures, highlight points in the preacher’s sermon and show announcements.
Today was to be its unveiling.
Clutching her daughter, Deborah Tyler of Garfield stood, crying, watching the embers of the roof spiral into the place where the new video system once stood.
“I had to come and say goodbye to Ebenezer,” she said. “I’m so distraught. This church is, was, so special to all of us. My daughter goes here. Her daughters would’ve gone to church here, too.”
Ebenezer Baptist Church
Important dates in the church’s history:
Church building built by Presbyterians in 1873.
Ebenezer congregation formed in 1875.
Ebenezer Baptist bought a church in 1906.
Host of the National Urban League conference in 1932.
Dr. J. Van Alfred Winsett becomes pastor in 1973.
Fire damages church in 1975, causing $300,000 in damage. Later restored.
Designated historic landmark in 1979.
Sources: Church members and historyStaff writer Vince Guerrieri also contributed to this story.
Jim Ritchie can be reached at jritchie@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7933.
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Some old schools are seeking new purpose
By Maggi Newhouse
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, February 23, 2004South Hills High School is a cold, hollow place.
The plaster is peeling, the hardwood floors are buckling and rain water streams in through the porous roof.
The massive building in Mt. Washington, which opened in 1916, once drew so many students from Pittsburgh’s southern communities that graduation programs had to be split over two days. It is one of more than a half-dozen district-owned schools that closed during the past 20 years due to declining enrollment.
School officials now face the daunting challenge of trying to persuade community groups and developers to restore and reuse these deteriorating buildings.
After two decades of futility, the district last month transferred the rights to South Hills High to the Urban Redevelopment Authority, hoping that city agency will have better luck.
There have been success stories.The old Latimer junior/senior high school on the North Side, which closed in 1982, was sold to a developer who converted the classrooms into the School House apartments and preserved many of the original features of the 106-year-old building, including the stairways and classroom numbers, said building manager Sarah Beck.
The Carriage House Children’s Center purchased Wightman Elementary School in 1986, six years after it closed. It now uses the basement and first floor of the Squirrel Hill facility for its preschool and full-day programs and leases the second floor to nonprofits.
Carriage House Executive Director Natalie Kaplan said the center has spent about $1.5 million to renovate and bring the building up to code, but also saved many distinctive features, including a third-floor gymnasium and several stained glass windows.
“It’s very exciting,” Kaplan said. “People come from out of town all the time and say ‘I went to school here. Can I walk around?'”
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Executive Director Louise Sturgess said that many city schools were built with quality materials, in prominent locations, to demonstrate the value of education to the community.
“The buildings were built to be permanent, to be symbols to the community that education is important,” she said.
That’s exactly what the Rev. Tim Smith sees every day from his office at Keystone Church of Hazelwood.
Next door, on a hillside overlooking Hazelwood, stands Gladstone Middle School.
Smith remembers its hallways being filled with people after the school day had ended. They came for computer and adult literacy classes, YMCA programs and athletic events.
When the district closed the 90-year-old school in 2001, many of the community programs went with it, Smith said.
“It was a place to go for a lot of kids who didn’t have anywhere to go,” he said. “It was pretty devastating, in my opinion.”
Smith heads the Gladstone Task Force, a group created by the Hazelwood Initiative. They have petitioned the school district to help pay for a $60,000 study looking at options for Gladstone.
There’s even hope for South Hills High School.
Jim DeGilio, a member of the Mt. Washington Community Development Corp., said a number of developers are moving forward with plans to buy the building and make it into a combination residential and commercial site.
DeGilio said it would cost about $20 million to repair and convert the 3.4-acre property.
While officials say they try to work with community groups interested in the properties, it often takes years for projects to move forward.
The poor condition of South Hills High, which closed in 1985, prompted school board members last month to ask the staff for recommendations.
“It’s unlikely we’d have something as drastic happen in most of these other buildings, but we would still want to move more expeditiously (on those schools) than we did on South Hills,” said district Chief Operations Officer Richard Fellers.
Fellers said his staff plans to have recommendations on other properties by late spring or early summer.
Fellers said a staff member is assigned to each school to make sure the building and surrounding grounds are maintained. Each school also is on the district’s security system.
“We do continue to look after them,” he said, noting the district still has to pay for utilities and general supplies to maintain the buildings.
School board member Randall Taylor said he would like to see something happen as soon as possible with the former Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts building in Homewood.
The 96-year-old building, a former elementary school, closed last year when the district opened the new CAPA school Downtown.
Taylor said he has been talking with community groups and other people about trying to develop a community center geared toward families, but that could take years.
His fear is that people will vandalize and tamper with the building now that it is empty.
“The schools are protected when the kids are there,” he said. “Now that they’re gone, all bets are off.”
Maggi Newhouse can be reached at mnewhouse@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7997.
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Proposals abound for Fifth and Forbes
Compiled By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sunday, February 08, 2004The distinct local businesses in the Fifth and Forbes district cannot hang on forever while PNC and the Urban Redevelopment Authority collect and sit on empty properties and the mayor waits for the perfect retail development to fall into his lap. The city’s Downtown deal-making of the past years has done nothing but plunge the city into debt. Downtown’s real estate market values no longer relate to reality, and no one can make an investment knowing that large-scale property owners are letting large swaths of the Fifth and Forbes district fester indefinitely.
Downtown should capitalize on what it does best: entertainment and commerce. Forget about subsidized big-box retail Downtown! Don’t compromise Kaufmann’s success. It is a destination unto itself, and subsidizing its competition is counterproductive.
Downtown will not succeed in the long term as a one-fell-swoop retail development project. For investment in the Fifth/Forbes district to be sustainable, development must be incremental and market-driven (the antithesis of the recent Lord & Taylor and Lazarus fiascoes). Paying outside developers to fix our city will do little to improve the integrity of our Downtown and will further export future income generation.Ideas for helping to promote a sustainable future for Downtown start with the sale of Fifth/Forbes district URA properties. Proceeds generated from the sales should be used to:
Hire a Main Street manager to market the district’s assets and to connect buildings/available rental space to interested tenants/owners.
Revive the Golden Triangle Community Development Corp. and give small business a bigger voice in Downtown development discussions.
Create an immigrant-recruitment and relocation program to repopulate Downtown and enliven specifically the Fifth/Forbes district.
Target investments to make the district’s buildings easier and more profitable to convert into mixed-use or residential buildings (for example, matching grant programs for the installation of elevators, sprinkler systems and a second means of egress), eliminating some roadblocks to building reuse.
Start a business program that helps local entrepreneurs.
Revive the URA Street Face program. Created to promote the sensitive renovation and rehabilitation of historic building facades, this program was just closed indefinitely, presumably due to the city’s fiscal situation. This was the one program that supported individuals wanting to invest in Pittsburgh’s aging building stock.
At this point, you must be a big-time developer to get support or interest from the city for your projects.
Plans for revitalizing areas:
Market Square is the rundown heart of Downtown. The Fifth/Forbes district cannot be improved without substantial investment in its core. What should be a central gathering place lacks in attractiveness, safety and cleanliness. With prominent empty storefronts at opposite corners of Market Square — the PPG and Murphy’s buildings — the public space feels increasingly vacant and rundown.
The Murphy’s building would be perfect for a market place. Downtown employees could use a supermarket with more inventory than a convenience store, where they could pick up dinner on the way home. A deli-style take-out counter would be a welcome addition to the lunch opportunities around Market Square. Surely the college students and residents of Downtown would appreciate being able to walk to get groceries.
At Warner Center, pair up each of the food court vendors with an empty URA property and a business plan. Activate the streets with diverse businesses. Turn Warner Center back into a movie house with more mainstream box-office draws to complement but not compete with the Harris Theater.
Forbes Avenue, full of smaller storefronts, could become the destination for a variety of ethnic restaurants and smaller-scale nightclubs and entertainment, particularly as the Cultural District empties certain tax-paying businesses from Liberty Avenue.
Finally, encourage Downtown living, including more dorms for Point Park and Duquesne students.
Start small, build green
Gary Saulson, Senior Vice President and Director of Corporate Real Estate, The PNC Financial Services Group
As owner of the largest group of properties that could be developed in the Fifth/Forbes corridor and one of the city’s largest employers, PNC has a vested interest and deep commitment to the revitalization of Downtown, which has tremendous benefits for the city and our region overall. Clearly, the “big bang” approach has not worked, so my three main recommendations are:
Think big, start small: Greater emphasis should be placed on Downtown’s residential population to help draw small businesses back into the district. There should be larger residential developments that appeal to a diverse range of residents, from the recent college grad to empty-nesters who are all drawn to the amenities and conveniences that could be offered. This will create the critical mass that a large, national retailer covets, and generate interest in the Lazarus and Lord & Taylor buildings. Now is not the time to get discouraged and overreact.
To complement any incoming “destination”-type retailers, we must pay equal attention to filling the spaces between those stores with the right mix of street-level businesses that will attract shoppers. Any mall developer will tell you the “anchor” stores rely on the smaller stores and vice versa. Go slow to grow big — accept steady, incremental growth and give entrepreneurs a chance to make a difference, along with the time to make it happen. It will take longer, but the benefits will be far more lasting.
Get connected: This city has already proven an ability to succeed with public/private partnerships, such as the Cultural District. Let’s build on the success of this nationally renowned redevelopment and expand its look, feel and vibrancy into central Downtown and extend it to the First Avenue area, where improvements are already being made. We can create “connectivity” so that residents and visitors alike can walk from river to river and appreciate the continuity, cleanliness, safety and vitality of our historic city. Responsible development that includes modern, appropriately priced housing attracts residents and will, in turn, drive demand for a wide variety of retail and service businesses.
Build responsibly: Think “green.” Pittsburgh is a national leader in environmentally responsible construction, with more than 30 registered or certified “green” buildings, including the two largest in the world — the convention center and PNC Firstside Center. We can continue to reinforce our region’s evolution by applying environmental principles to the revitalization of Downtown. A deeper commitment to water and energy efficiency, open “green” space, pollution control and traffic planning all will serve us well. It also will make Pittsburgh more attractive to potential businesses, residents and tourists.
Embrace market economics
Bernie Lynch, former executive director of the Market Square Association
Here’s how to do it:
Repeal the Fifth/Forbes redevelopment plan and “lift the cloud on the title” of these properties, allowing them to be free and clear for resale for what the market will bring. Stop our government from using eminent domain by taking property from one private owner to give to another of its choice.
New development: Ask PNC chairman Jim Rohr to develop PNC’s dozen or so properties on Fifth Avenue.
Force the URA to sell its Downtown properties (including Lazarus), valued collectively as high as $50 million. Sell them in an open, transparent bidding process (banks need not apply). Open the pools and recreation centers this summer with the first proceeds of the property sales, which should use up about $4 million, leaving us $16 million to $46 million to help fix that budget problem we keep talking about.
Disband the URA. Overhaul the whole idea of “authorities” that take our revenue streams for their purposes and leave the city economically dry to operate. No RIDC, no county development agency. Encourage the private sector to do this work. Re-evaluate market-manipulation funds like tax increment financing, the Strategic Investment Fund, the Pittsburgh Development Fund and others. Realize that “big bang” doesn’t work long term.
Embrace entrepreneurs, businesses, mom-and-pop shops, the owner-occupied merchant, the immigrant business owners who can’t work in corporate America but whose drive can’t be stopped.. Embrace the yet-to-be-revealed, next-generation business gurus.
No more handouts. No business privilege tax for anyone. Spread a regional business tax that is palatable to all across five or six counties. Let’s not keep driving everyone out of a core that will collapse if it isn’t supported.
Build on strengths
Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh; Dan Holland, founder
The association embraces the message of CMU professor Joel Tarr’s new book, “Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and Its Region”: Let us not repeat mistakes of the past.
We think Downtown doesn’t need too much tinkering to enhance its strengths, which include architectural diversity, pedestrian-friendly streets, a transit-accessible location and untapped potential for housing.
Creative and flexible taxation and zoning mechanisms combined with existing preservation laws, new state legislation and time-tested preservation techniques can ultimately generate a successful mixed-use residential, office and retail environment for the Fifth/Forbes corridor.
We have three recommendations:
Expand the Downtown historic districts. You can’t have too much of a good thing. Pittsburgh must maintain the historic integrity of our Downtown buildings, including historic interiors. We want to keep our architectural landscape as distinct as possible so that our Downtown is unlike any other urban center in the country. The current historic districts — Penn-Liberty and Market Square — are the most vibrant and economically successful parts of Downtown. We must build upon this success.
Consider a third Downtown historic district along the Fifth/Forbes corridor, to include other notable structures, such as the Park Building and Warner Theater. Nominate Fourth Avenue, between Smithfield and Wood streets, which borders the Market Square district, as a city historic district.
Amend the Historic Preservation Code to create a special historic interiors provision for Downtown. The gutting of the marble interior of Mellon Bank was a travesty that could have been avoided if preservation of historic interiors had been codified into law.
Allow for flexibility. The YPA is not flatly against demolition or alteration of historic structures; some compromises may have to be made. But these are options of last resort Progressive new architecture should be encouraged where appropriate, but not to replace a historic structure.
Create a competitive program that rewards innovative, quality commercial design with incorporated living spaces and sound business plans with low- or no-cost land, plus new/upgraded infrastructure to the site. An Urban Business & Residential Homesteading Program would encourage a mix of housing, retail and office space. The agency would help negotiate the sale of buildings and make the property available to the highest evaluated rehab/development/small business plans within established guidelines and rehab standards.
Encourage banks to adopt a Location Efficient Lending program –innovative underwriting standards by private or public lenders who recognize the significant retention of disposable income to people who are living where they work.
Urge swift passage of the proposed Historic Rehabilitation and Economic Revitalization Tax Credit Act (Pennsylvania Senate Bill 820 and its companion bills, House Bill 951 and 952). The House version passed unanimously in 2003. In short, this legislation provides a 20 percent tax credit on eligible redevelopment costs. The proposed historic tax credit empowers local redevelopment authorities to designate those buildings that are most important to the community and most economically viable for consideration.
Adopt meaningful transit changes to increase Downtown’s accessibility without compromising its historic integrity. This would mean no more surface parking lots. Consider creating a free (or low-fee) shuttle that would service suburban communities to bring people Downtown. Create common-sense ways to navigate the archaic Downtown bus routing systems. A commuter rail system from the north and east should be strongly considered, eliminating the current strain on Route 28 and the Parkway East.
Word by word
Eve Picker, President, no wall productions
It’s like a crossword puzzle. You can’t solve all the words at once. They intersect and need each other. But you know that it is solvable. If you start in one place, with one word, and then another, it gets easier and easier.
The Fifth and Forbes project is no different. We have tried to solve it all at once. We need well-sequenced, small, achievable steps that get us there in the end. And here they are:
The G.C. Murphy Block:Develop the upper floors of as much of the G.C. Murphy block as possible. Forget about the missing pieces. If property owners want to be holdouts, so be it. A lot can be done right now. And I will shamelessly add: Let no wall productions do this project. We’ve been working on it for months now, with the continued support of the URA, and we know how to make it fly.
Market Square: Police Market Square 24 hours a day and clean it up. It must be a joy to visit, not a threat. Chase away loiterers. Encourage others to program more there in the summer. Solicit the help of the Market Square Association and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. Sweep it, clean windows, keep it free of litter, and do it every day.
Market Square District: Pull the charm of Market Square up the street, along Forbes Avenue. Create a Market Square District. The entire block of Forbes from Wood to Market Square would feel as if you have entered a neighborhood. The effect is easy to achieve. On the north side, the G.C. Murphy building will be ready with tenants and a gorgeous facade. The URA has control of a lot of land on the south side of the street — here’s an opportunity to build a smaller-scale housing project; maybe this one can be for sale. There’s enough land for parking here, too.
Build great retail spaces, and now you have three spaces ready for retailers: the G.C. Murphy building, the Lazarus building and the south side of Forbes. Now let’s think about improving the sidewalks and lighting, too.
Fifth Avenue: The toughest block to develop — it’s a great location for a future larger and denser housing and retail project but will need parking, and it is very, very expensive to build. It looks hard now but will become easier as the rest takes off. It’s the hardest word to solve in the crossword puzzle. But we have a powerful ally there: PNC Bank.
Retail: Keep looking for a retail partner to implement the retail plan. Make it as enticing as possible. We have a significant site assembled. There’s something to be said for staying with Downtown Works — they have such a thorough understanding of the city by now; we may lose too much time starting over. It will set us back another year.
A market house in Market Square
Arthur Ziegler, President, Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation
Take any available funds, publicly held land and suitable buildings and make them available for housing.
Support a great market house in Market Square. If Market Square must remain open space, use the G.C. Murphy building. A stunning new building would symbolize a positive Downtown renewal and answer the No. 1 question of potential residents: Where can I buy groceries?
Do not limit the housing to the Fifth and Forbes area, but encourage it, preferably with its own parking, everywhere Downtown, especially on the riverfronts.
Adopt the excellent plan prepared by Stan Ekstut that Landmarks submitted three years ago as a guide. [It would have cost about the same as the mayor’s plan, but saved more historic buildings and added housing to the mix.]
Blend the bold with the old
Arthur Lubetz Associates Architects, Oakland
The Fifth/Forbes corridor is the core of the Golden Triangle, and as such it should be the core for the city and the region. This Pittsburgh Core should both underscore and amplify the dynamic and strongly dense urban quality of the Triangle. Moreover, the Pittsburgh Core, like the core of the Earth itself, should be a vital, vibrant place. How can we accomplish this?
Restore and re-use existing buildings almost exclusively for housing — dense, impacted housing that attracts a variety of people and income levels. A good deal of this housing should also have access to adjacent parking. In restoring the existing buildings, render them lively and arresting, from brilliant new paint to exciting textures, aromas and materials.
On the cutting edge: or “in-fill” buildings to be erected on empty lots, chose leading-edge, 21st-century architects, commissioning them to design striking, visionary, exciting places that are simultaneously seen and experienced.
In this way, the Pittsburgh Core could be transformed into one of the most thrilling urban settings in the nation, a place that attracts people with a series of dramatic episodes. The end result would be a memorable experience for the participants — achieved by engaging all the senses, stimulating the body, evoking powerful responses. This total experience of colors, sights, signs, sounds and materials would render the Pittsburgh Core a unique place.
A place to go, a place to be. We can distinguish this city with an urban center where visitors feel the great density of a city while gazing past the rivers and to the green hills beyond. What other city can say that?
Back off, Mr. Mayor
Pat Clark, founding member, GroundZero Action Network
Get out of the business of Downtown shopping center development. Until the city steps away from this strategy, the depressed real estate and retail business environment Downtown will continue to degrade. Redevelopment will never occur in an uncertain and speculative environment, an artificial economy where the city and the URA continue to buy up property for the sake of a misguided vision that is not working. Free-market forces can and will be able to begin the kind of incremental redevelopment that will prove to be lasting and effective, but not until the city restores some stability to the district.
Don’t try to do it all. Leadership doesn’t mean running the whole show; it means partnering and empowering others toward shared goals. Encourage, support and embrace a more diverse strategy of housing and business development Downtown, letting retail take its logical, more secondary role. Retail will naturally follow population and business. Funds and support of retail are better directed toward our neighborhood business districts.
Young entrepreneurs should lead the way. There’s a lot of talk in this town about attracting and retaining young people. There’s a simple solution to turning that talk into results: Support their ideas, empower them and fund them. Create a development fund, managed by young people, to support creative young entrepreneurs in developing businesses in the Fifth/Forbes district. A few key businesses founded by young entrepreneurs were instrumental in helping to turn around South Street in Philadelphia and Adams Morgan in Washington, D.C., during the 1980s, downtown Bakersfield, Calif., in the 1990s, as well as our own Carson Street. Perhaps PNC Bank could help fund this type of initiative and, in the process, transform all those empty retail properties PNC owns along Fifth Avenue that have sat vacant for years.
Stop focusing on building $500,000 luxury condos Downtown. The best target market to repopulate Downtown quickly is young people, homesteaders who aren’t bothered by vacant night-time streets but would actually be attracted to a bohemian-style district — if only there were affordable housing in the upper floors of Downtown properties!
Developing this kind of housing will take subsidies, but I’d wager that the luxury condos would, too, and on a much larger scale. The difference is that young people would actually be inclined to live down there right now if there were housing, even without an upscale grocery store or a Crate & Barrel.
Middle-class Pittsburgh is the solution, not the problem. Five years ago, a big part of the reason that we had a lively retail environment Downtown was that its stores served two important customer bases: Downtown workers as well as the working- and middle-class shoppers who relied on public transit. The Nordstrom/Lord & Taylor retail mirage aimed to upscale the district, shooting for attracting the affluent shopper at the direct expense of the more value-minded traditional shopper. Now the empty storefronts serve neither, but chances of redeveloping the district will most logically succeed if based on the customers who have long supported the district.
Sell everything immediately
Terry A. Necciai, former Main Street manager in Charleroi and Somerset, presented a Main Street plan for Fifth/Forbes to City Council in April 2000. He is currently a project architect with John Milner Associates, Alexandria, Va.
Divest the city its financial interests in Fifth/Forbes corridor commercial properties. Government involvement in property ownership and development is a disincentive to businesses. The Fifth and Forbes area is an excellent example — as soon as the city decided to give up on the business people already in place and acquire real estate and seek and financially support outside investors, local business owners began to posture themselves either to sell to the city or go out of business.
From the sale of buildings, set aside some of the proceeds to establish a new “public-private partnership” office aimed directly at helping existing business and property owners to “grow” their businesses and improve their buildings and their marketing strategies. Focus a large percentage of the marketing resources and energy available on creating visible events targeted at making the office workers and various individuals who commute to Downtown feel like the place is “people friendly” and fun.
Create an aggressive, positive-minded program that works with existing property owners. This program should be only on a “technical assistance” basis. The technical assistance should include highly specialized, highly qualified and highly motivated staff people who know how to work with property owners, large and small, and who know how to deliver good and useful advice about marketing, aesthetics, advertising, and so on. Such a program can be budgeted (and staffed) at about $200,000 a year or less.
Undertake many small- and modest-scaled projects rather than concentrate on “big fix” ideas. Revitalization is almost the complete, categorical opposite of “redevelopment.” To revitalize means to make something “vital.” Vitality comes with diversity and not with top-down “site control.”
Treat historic buildings as assets and gradually upgrade them. That includes all the old quirky stuff found in the district, Any additional funds the city has available should go toward carefully crafted matching grant programs — the city should give no money to private businesses unless matched by the business owner or property owner who is benefiting from the program.
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A Fifth/Forbes TimelineSeptember 1996 — Demolition begins on nine buildings that will be replaced by a Lazarus department store and underground garage.
October 1998 — The May Co. announces it will buy the Mellon Bank headquarters building for $9 million and spend another $27 million converting it to a Lord & Taylor store. Of the $36 million total, the Urban Redevelopment Authority will provide $11.75 million in a “soft loan.” Repayment won’t be triggered until the store generates sales of $259 per square foot.
November 1998 — $78 million Lazarus opens with $50 million in public subsidies, including $18 million in loans from the Pittsburgh Development Fund, $15 million in tax increment financing and $14 million for the 520-space parking garage.
August 1999 — Mellon Bank’s historic marble interior is demolished.
October 1999 — Mayor Murphy announces a $480.5 million plan by Chicago developer Urban Retail Properties to demolish 62 buildings and replace them with 40 new shops, restaurants, an 18-screen movie theater and Nordstrom store. The plan includes $53.5 million in public funds. The city would acquire 64 buildings, by eminent domain if necessary, and sell the land to Urban Retail.
November 1999 — Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and Preservation Pittsburgh propose a redevelopment plan by New York architect Stan Eckstut that would cost about the same as the mayor’s plan but save more buildings and add housing to the mix.
April 2000 — The newly formed Golden Triangle Community Development Corp. presents its plan to City Council, based on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s incremental Main Street approach.
November 2000 — Lord & Taylor opens. With Nordstrom expressing only lukewarm interest in the Urban Retail project and property owners threatening lawsuits, Murphy drops the Urban Retail plan.
December 2000 — Murphy forms Plan C Task Force, a coalition of city officials, building and business owners and preservationists.
March 2002 — Murphy releases details of Plan C: $363 million for a new hotel, office building, indoor public market, two retail buildings and two residential developments.
March 2003 — In a speech at the Rivers Club, Murphy reveals portions of a plan by Kravco. Co., in which the block containing the old G.C. Murphy store would stay intact; parking would be built underneath a Fifth Avenue block controlled by PNC Financial Services Group; and housing would be built along a stretch of Forbes anchored by Market Square and Wood Street. By summer, Murphy says, Kravco will produce a more detailed plan. By early fall, demolition or renovation work could start on the first buildings.
July 2003 — Lord & Taylor announces it will close its Downtown store, which could remain open until its lease expires at the end of 2005.
January 2004 — Kravco drops the Pittsburgh project after merging with Simon Properties, a mall developer. Lazarus announces it will close its Downtown store in May.
— Patricia Lowry
(Post-Gazette architecture critic Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590.)
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South Fayette officials, residents agree on need for open space at Boys home site
By Patrick Ponticel
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Wednesday, February 04, 2004South Fayette officials want to take a decidedly careful approach to residential growth, saying they are well aware of what indiscriminate development can do to suburban farms and woodlands.
That was evident at a special meeting recently about the old Boys Home property, a 214-acre farm off Battle Ridge Road near Oakdale that the township owns. The 50 residents and officials of South Fayette indicated a strong preference for preserving most, if not all, of the land.
“Minimal development and more preservation” should be the guiding mantra of South Fayette in its general approach to growth, resident Don Smith said. Regarding the Boys Home property, he said, “If there is going to be development, it should be controlled development.”
His wife, Amy, added, “The first priority should be no development.”
The Smiths’ comments were representative of most residents, although a few found much appeal in the idea of the township selling a portion of the property to pay for improvements to the Boys Home gymnasium.
The building is sound structurally, but a major renovation would be required for it to serve as a community athletic or meeting center. Commissioner Sue Caffrey, who serves on the board of the South Fayette Conservation Group, said she had no preconceived notions about what to do with the property overall. But as for the gymnasium, she hopes it can be renovated. Selling a portion of the property to pay for it is an option.
Residents were encouraged by Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation President Arthur Ziegler to mail additional comments to the township by Sunday. By Feb. 19, township and foundation officials will put together a proposed plan.
They have hired the consulting firm of LaQuatra Bonci Associates to, among other things, compile a natural resources inventory of the Boys Home property.
With this information, the company prepared several maps outlining how the property could be developed in conservation-friendly ways to accommodate a limited number of homes.
Fred Bonci, a principal in the company, emphasized that the purpose of the maps was to illustrate a general and more progressive approach to residential development. They were not designed, he said, as recommendations for how the Boys Home property should be developed. “That?s up to you,” he told the crowd. “These are simply ideas that can be used throughout the township.”
Several of the maps featured small clusters of small-lot homes with the majority of the property remaining open space. Others featured nonclustered homes on larger lots, the idea being that the property could be developed to a large extent but preserved to open space via easements.
Joe Hackett, of LaQuatra Bonci, said that in the township’s current zoning ordinance, land preservation was not a consideration. Were the township to sell the Boys Home property, he said, a developer could turn it into something that looks like one of the many “cookie-cutter” housing plans that have sprung up.
Caffrey said the township was updating the zoning ordinance to, among other things, put an end to tree-clearing residential development. Although many municipal zoning ordinances impose requirements for open space preservation, it is most generally the least desirable and least “developable” part of a property ? steep slopes, for example ? which developers will “dedicate” to open space, Bonci said. Ziegler and Bonci emphasized that, elsewhere, developers were beginning to realize that homeowners like having higher value open space bordering their properties.
The meeting was the second in a series to let residents express their preference for how the Boys Home property should be handled. The next meeting will be Feb. 19 in the conference center in the South Fayette Township High School.
(Patrick Ponticel is a freelance writer.)