Category Archive: Threatened Historic Resources
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South Fayette residents prefer more preservation, less development on Boys Home land
By Patrick Ponticel
Pittsburgh Post Gazettte
Wednesday, January 21, 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 Thursday night at a special meeting 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, said resident Don Smith. 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 did note that there is 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.
Commissioners Chairwoman Sue Caffrey who serves on the board of the South Fayette Conservation Group said she has 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 Feb. 1. 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 is 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 is 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) that developers will “dedicate” to open space, Bonci said.
Ziegler and Bonci emphasized that elsewhere, developers are beginning to realize that homeowners like having higher value open space bordering their properties. Thursday’s 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.)
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No Surprise: Landmark asset destroyed for faulty vision
No Surprise: Landmark asset destroyed for faulty vision
August 7th, 2003
Grand Marble Columns 
Lobby View 
DESTROYED 
ABANDONED Lord & Taylor has announced that it will close the store that it built at enormous public cost in the once grand main banking room of Mellon Bank.
Landmarks had opposed the destruction of this exceptional room with its sixteen marble columns, the marble floor and counters, the grand chandeliers, and the bronze ornaments.
We felt that the space was a tremendous magnet to attract people to the Fifth/Forbes area, and it should be given a use that enhanced it.
Instead about $27 million dollars of public money was used for loans and grants to the May Company and its subsidiaries Kaufmann’s and Lord & Taylor and the asset was destroyed.
Across the country, department stores are vacating, dying, or at the best, like Kaufmann’s downtown, shrinking.
They have been described by retail developers as “dinosaurs.”
Landmarks advocated putting the public dollars that were invested in Lazarus, and Lord & Taylor ($70 to $90 million?) into loft housing in the historic buildings together with a considerable amount of new housing coupled with a great new glass Market House at Market Square. Bring in the people and the retail will follow on its own is our belief.
The Cultural District also could serve as an anchor and we proposed better linkage at Liberty Avenue and Market Square to induce people going to the theatres to come into the Fifth/Forbes area.
Lazarus and Lord & Taylor have not brought the promised results of independent retailers springing up voluntarily all around them. In fact, there is a far greater degree of vacancy around Lazarus today than there was before it was built when vacancy was zero.
We believe that the current Fifth/Forbes developer Kravco is on the right track and will release a plan that organically builds the revitalization of the area in a way the speaks to our local market and that will therefore work. We believe the firm will not artificially inflate dinosaurs, but will engage with the future rather than with paleontology.
The tragedy is that the great banking room can never be regained, and in addition the taxpayer is now holding the bill for its destruction.
Copyright © 1997-2007 Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, 100 West Statio
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How about a store less ritzy Downtown?
y Mike Seate
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, August 4, 2003You can’t help feeling sorry for our city over the imminent closing of Downtown’s 3-year-old Lord & Taylor department store. Sure, the pundits with their “told-you-so’s” are right: It was silly to throw taxpayer money at the store in the belief that downtown Pittsburgh could support four upscale department stores.
As a shopping hub, Downtown peaked when steel was the undisputed king.The Murphy administration and the city Urban Redevelopment Authority — which gave an $11.75 million loan to May Department Stores Co., Lord & Taylor’s St. Louis-based parent company — had to at least suspect we were already pretty well covered in the $90 umbrella department by Kaufmann’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. Then came Lord & Taylor and, with a loan of its own, a Lazarus followed.
Today, the city is in a mad scramble to fill the soon-to-be-vacant store with another retailer better suited to Fox Chapel or Sewickley than the central business district of an ailing mid-sized city like our own. It’s time to face reality.
Downtown Pittsburgh is like hundreds of other middle-income cities where discount retailers — Wal-Mart, Kmart, maybe a Target — serve poorer, urban consumers while well-to-do shoppers patronize upscale shops in the suburbs.
Don’t lump me in with the urban-bashers who are laughing in their suburban malls over this fiasco. I wanted to see Lord & Taylor help turn Downtown’s grimy Fifth Avenue business corridor around. As someone who grew up shopping in the Downtown, I’ve had a hard time watching the area’s decline over the past 30 years.
I’m sure Mayor Murphy’s team and the URA must have had a vision of returning Downtown to its former glory. You can visit the Carnegie Library in Oakland and see vivid images of a city most of us wouldn’t recognize: streets full of well-dressed white people in furs, suits and fedoras. It more closely resembles a scene from a Fred Astaire movie than the Downtown we know today.
It seems painfully clear to nearly everyone — except city officials — that those shoppers aren’t interested in coming to Downtown in significant numbers. Not when they can shop with free parking, no weather and — let’s face it — fewer poor people and people of color out in the ‘burbs. That doesn’t mean Downtown has to become a sea of plywood-covered windows and “Mookie’s House Of Bling-Bling” jewelry shops.
Me’Shawn Beverly, of the Strip District, was shopping Downtown on Friday. This single mother of three said the Burlington Coat Factory on Smithfield Street is the type of store — reasonably priced, that is — that families like hers need to see more of Downtown.
Beverly, a domestic worker, says she visited Lord & Taylor only once, “to check things out when they first opened.” She was a more frequent visitor than others I spoke with — including some who thought the regal-looking building still housed a bank.
“I still don’t get why there’s no grocery store or a T.J. Maxx down here like up at Waterworks. Get us a grocery store, and I won’t be catching jitneys to the South Side every Saturday,” Beverly said angrily.
I hope she and others will say that loud enough and often enough that someone in city government will listen.
Mike Seate is a staff writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He can be reached at (412) 320-7845 or e-mail him at mseate@tribweb.com
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Lord & Taylor leaving Pittsburgh – 3-year-old Downtown store among 32 retailer is unloading
By Len Boselovic and Dan Fitzpatrick,
Post-Gazette Staff Writers
Thursday, July 31, 2003May Department Stores said yesterday it intends to sell its Lord & Taylor store on Smithfield Street and 31 others in 15 states in a $380 million restructuring.
The announcement deals another blow to the city’s languishing plans to revitalize its struggling Downtown retail district.
The St. Louis-based chain yesterday said it is divesting stores that aren’t supporting its strategy of repositioning the chain as an upscale retailer. Although they represent 38 percent of Lord & Taylor’s 86 locations, the 32 stores account for only 19 percent of sales.
It’s not certain when the Downtown store will close. It employs 75 and opened three years ago as a strategic piece of a Fifth-Forbes renewal plan that never took off. May has a lease agreement with the Urban Redevelopment Authority that calls for it to operate the store through 2005 or pay off an $11.8 million URA loan that helped finance its opening.
Spokeswoman Sharon Bateman would say only that Lord & Taylor will continue operating all stores targeted for divestiture until it can get out of leases at those it rents and sell the stores that it owns.
Retail analysts expect it will be tough to find buyers given the economy and competition, and said the urban location won’t make the sale of the Pittsburgh store any easier.
Mayor Tom Murphy and URA Director Mulugetta Birru — the duo that worked hard to woo Lord & Taylor to the city — indicated that they would sue if May failed to live up to its obligation to operate the store through 2005.
But analysts expect that won’t prevent May from leaving town sooner and speculated that a payoff of its loan is included in the $380 million May said the overall restructuring will cost.
Lord & Taylor bought its Downtown site from Mellon Financial for $9 million in 1998 and opened the store two years later after extensively renovating the building over the protests of preservationists who lamented the destruction of the neoclassical, marble interior.
Downtown boosters hoped Lord & Taylor would serve as one of the last pieces of a puzzle aimed at spurring transformation of a ragtag corridor into a vibrant retail and entertainment center.
But as the Fifth-Forbes plans stalled, so did sales at the new Lord & Taylor, totaling only $11.2 million in 2001 and $9.1 million last year, according to the URA — sharply below the $35 million threshold at which the chain was supposed to contribute money to help pay off the URA loan.
While the store was a poor performer, city officials said they were caught by surprise by yesterday’s announcement.
Birru, in fact, cited an upbeat conversation he had six to eight months ago with a May executive vice president who admitted that sales were slow but stressed that May “would never give up in the Pittsburgh market and they would make it work.”
Birru was miffed at how the announcement yesterday was handled. “I haven’t spoken to them; they haven’t called us … they should let us know on the phone that they are closing and why they are closing and how they would cooperate in dealing with us,” he said.
Joining Birru in frustration yesterday were the preservationists who fought May’s decision to gut the building’s interior. “We believe this has been a high price to pay for a retail store,” said Cathy McCollom, an official with the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. “It was a spectacular, unique interior that was lost forever.”
Murphy tried to put a brave face on the news, saying the city “firmly believes that the Golden Triangle can become a thriving, vibrant retail district.”
If the city is to take any comfort in yesterday’s news, it’s that Pittsburgh wasn’t being singled out.
Lord & Taylor also is abandoning stores in Harrisburg, Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio, and Tampa, Fla., two stores each in Miami and Dallas, three stores each in Atlanta, Houston and Denver, as well as several other locations.
May expects the closings to save it $50 million annually and allow it to focus on making the chain more appealing to an affluent clientele. One criticism of the Downtown store and other Lord & Taylor locations targeted for abandonment is that their merchandise wasn’t all that different from department stores such as sister Kaufmann’s or Lazarus.
With Lord & Taylor out, it’s not certain what will become of the Downtown site. Some have suggested Nordstrom, another high-end retailer long sought by the city, as a possibility, but those efforts have been unsuccessful to date and analyst Eric Meyers doesn’t think Lord & Taylor’s exodus will change that.
“I don’t think Pittsburgh is a market they are terribly interested in,” said Meyers, an equity analyst with Federated Investors, Downtown. Even if Seattle-based Nordstrom were interested, it would probably prefer a suburban location such as Robinson, he said.
Target and Wal-Mart, two discount retailers, do have some urban stores, “but the economics have to be good, which means a lot of support from the city,” Meyers said. “I think it’s going to be a tough market for the real estate.”
Dusty Elias Kirk, an attorney with Pepper Hamilton who is familiar with real estate development issues, said the announcement could further complicate Murphy’s efforts to redevelop Fifth and Forbes. “That’s not a corner you would want to have empty for long,” she said.
Herky Pollock, a retail broker with CB Richard Ellis/Pittsburgh, agreed.
“The fact that a well-known national department store was unable to be successful in the best retail corner in Downtown, coupled with the fact that Lazarus is not doing well Downtown, does not signify great hopes for the retail corridor as it currently exists.”
A closing of Lord & Taylor, Pollock added, “certainly would cause retailers to pause about the overall vibrancy of the Downtown market. How could it not?”
Retail broker Kevin Langholz with Langholz/Wilson & Associates predicted that with Lord and Taylor’s exit, “Downtown Pittsburgh will continue its downward spiral in the minds of retailers.”
But Midge McCauley, a retailing expert hired by the mayor to recommend changes for the Fifth and Forbes corridor, said she and her suburban Philadelphia-based employer, Kravco Co., remain committed to the project.
“I don’t like to see stores close,” McCauley said, but Pittsburgh “has more department stores than most cities. Even if you lose two of your four department stores, you still have more than most cities.”
Despite the condition of Fifth and Forbes, some big-name retailers continue to mull moves here.
Saks Fifth Avenue has been talking for years about expanding its store on Smithfield. Upscale Dallas department store Neiman Marcus toured Downtown last year, looking for possible locations. And Chicago home furnishings retailer Crate & Barrel has said Pittsburgh is a market on its radar.
Finding a new user for the 125,000-square-foot Lord & Taylor building will be challenging, though.
Real estate experts said May probably will not sell it to a department store competitor, with a May-owned Kaufmann’s still operating across the street. And converting it to office space would be expensive and perhaps unlikely in what remains a soft commercial real estate market.
Before the building became a Lord & Taylor, the previous owners at Mellon Financial tried a number of different things before settling on the retailer. They thought about making it a conference center or a large display area for Mellon’s products. They even considered using it as a small hotel for Mellon employees or working with the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh to develop it as a museum.
“There is a use for everything,” said Rob Geiger of real estate brokerage Grant Street Associates, who helped Mellon sell the building to May. “It just takes a little work to find it.
(Post-Gazette staff writers Tom Barnes and Tim McNulty contributed to this story. Len Boselovic can be reached at lboselovic@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1941. Dan Fitzpatrick can be reached at dfitzpatrick@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1752.)
Joe Grata can be reached at jgrata@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1985.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Lord & Taylor leaving Downtown
By Michael Yeomans
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, July 31, 2003For the second time in a year, May Department Stores Co. dropped a bomb on Downtown Pittsburgh.
Less than three years after gutting the marble interior of a landmark Pittsburgh building, once the headquarters of Mellon Bank, to open a $30 million Lord & Taylor department store, the company said Wednesday it wants to sell or close the store and leave town.
Last summer, the St. Louis-based company combined its then-Pittsburgh-based Kaufmann’s division with its Filene’s division, consolidating the management of the two in Boston, where Filene’s is based. The move cost Downtown about 1,200 jobs.
Shocked city officials are scrambling to find out what their legal options are.
Mayor Tom Murphy, who was notified of the Lord & Taylor plans yesterday by a senior May Co. official, said the chain could be required to operate the store for at least another two years as part of a deal in which it received an $11.75 million loan from the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority.
“The city and URA incorporated a clause into the original agreement requiring Lord & Taylor to operate their Pittsburgh store for a minimum of five years, and we look forward to discussing these issues in further detail with the May Co.,” Murphy said in a statement.
May Co. said the Downtown Lord & Taylor, which opened in November 2000, was an underperforming store in its brief life.
“That store did not achieve a suitable level of performance and did not support efforts to turn it into an upscale fashion retailer,” company spokeswoman Sharon Bateman said.
Bateman said the store will operate as usual until the company sells it or closes it. She declined to speculate when that could happen.
In all, May said it intends to sell or close 32 stores in 15 states, including two in Pennsylvania — Downtown and Harrisburg. The chain also has four stores in the Philadelphia area. May will keep 54 stores open in 11 states and the District of Columbia as it repositions the chain as a more upscale boutique. May also said it will close two other stores it operates.
The company said the moves will cost it $380 million, but ultimately yield savings of $50 million a year. About 3,700 employees will be affected, and May said severance and retirement benefits will be available for those who qualify.
Jane Elfers, chief executive of Lord & Taylor, said the stores to be closed represent 38 percent of the chain’s locations, but only 19 percent of its sales.
Customers at the Downtown store were surprised by the announcement.
Lois Peters, of Uniontown, was in Pittsburgh yesterday specifically to shop at Lord & Taylor for a dress for her daughter, Mackenzie. She said she will be disappointed to see the store close.
“Some stores are just special. This is one of them,” she said. “We knew what we wanted, and it was right there.”
Carol Epps, 42, of Greentree, said she will have to switch over to Saks Fifth Avenue.
“(Lord & Taylor) has a nice selection and seemed to be more on the higher end,” she said.
Steve Baumgarten, a retail analyst for Parker/Hunter Inc. in Pittsburgh, said the city might attempt to once again lure Seattle-based Nordstrom to Pittsburgh to fill the Lord & Taylor space.
A Nordstrom spokeswoman said yesterday the company has no plans for a store in Pittsburgh. Mayor Murphy, in his initial plan to redevelop the Fifth and Forbes corridor, made landing a Nordstrom store a cornerstone of his plan.
Baumgarten said May did too little to differentiate Lord & Taylor from Kaufmann’s. The area’s flagship Kaufmann’s store Downtown is next door to Lord & Taylor.
“I shop at both, and there is a lot of similar product in both stores. They cannibalized each other,” he said.
Margaret “Midge” McCauley, director of Downtown Works — a division of Kravco, the Philadelphia company picked by Murphy to put together a redevelopment plan for the city’s Fifth and Forbes and Market Square areas — tried to put the best face on the Lord & Taylor decision.
“I think we can go forward without it. You still have three department stores, which is more than most cities have,” she said. “I’m very upbeat about Pittsburgh. You’ve got all the elements in place for a successful revitalization of Downtown.”
Department stores in general are suffering at the hands of discounters such as Wal-Mart, Target and Kohl’s.
Through the month of May, May Department Stores has suffered declining same-store sales for 13 consecutive months. Department store chains are doing several things to attempt to reverse their slide.
Last month, May fired about 1,500 employees, about three or four in each of the company’s 447 stores, after cutting 1,600 jobs last year in the combination of Kaufmann’s and Filene’s.
On Friday, Federated Department Stores Inc. will unveil its new Lazarus-Macy’s name in its five regional stores, including its Downtown location. The move is an attempt by Cincinnati-based Federated to establish a national brand by using the familiar Macy’s name.
In addition to the name change, Cincinnati-based Federated has identified Pittsburgh as one of six regions where it will spend $100 million in an attempt to make its stores more convenient for shoppers.
Some of the changes include more signs, automated price scanners throughout the stores, lounges in the fitting rooms and the addition of “upscale” shopping carts.
Richard Istvan, store manager for the Jos. A. Banks Clothier Downtown, said Lord & Taylor’s departure will mean less customer traffic in the Fifth Avenue corridor.
“I’m surprised they’re going before Lazarus,” he said.
Lord & Taylor stores on closings list
Here is a list of the 34 stores that May Department Stores Co. plans to close. All are Lord & Taylor stores unless otherwise noted:
COLORADO — Three stores in Denver.
CONNECTICUT — Stores in Manchester and Meriden.
GEORGIA — Three stores in Atlanta.
FLORIDA — Two stores in Miami; one each in Boca Raton, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, Palm Beach County and Tampa.
IOWA — One Famous-Barr store in Des Moines.
KENTUCKY — One store in Louisville.
LOUISIANA — One store in New Orleans.
MARYLAND — One store in Baltimore.
MASSACHUSETTS — One store in Springfield and one store in North Attleboro.
NEBRASKA — One Jones Store in Omaha.
NEW YORK — One store in Albany.
NORTH CAROLINA — One store in Raleigh.
OHIO — One store in Columbus.
PENNSYLVANIA — One store in Harrisburg and one store in Pittsburgh.
RHODE ISLAND — One store in Providence.
TEXAS — Two stores in Dallas/Fort Worth and three stores in Houston.
VIRGINIA — One store in Norfolk.
By The Associated PressMichael Yeomans can be reached at myeomans@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7908.
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New designs for Route 28 gains support – Proposals would spare church, industrial park
By Joe Grata,
Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Thursday, July 17, 2003Alternative designs initiated by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation only six months ago appear to be gaining support for the eventual reconstruction of a two-mile stretch of Route 28 between the North Side and Millvale.
Both options would save St. Nicholas Church, the first Croatian Roman Catholic Church in the United States, although the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese wants to close it, and Millvale Industrial Park, although the owner wants to get rid of it.
Historic preservation groups are rallying around the two sites along the dangerous, congested highway.
At a PennDOT-sponsored open house at the Boathouse on Washington’s Landing yesterday, many of the 300 people who turned out to look at plans and meet with engineers appeared to favor “Alternative 6,” which proposes to rebuild Route 28 essentially where it is, rather than “Alternative 5,” which would place six lanes of traffic on a 30-foot overpass only a flying hubcap away from the stained-glass “rose window” above St. Nicholas’ main entrance.
“No. 6 is a superb plan,” said Jack Schmitt, chairman of the Religious Structures Committee of Preservation Pittsburgh, who said new access and parking would enable the church’s dwindling congregation to grow. “It saves the church, preserves the green hillside and is cheaper” by $40 million.
No. 6 could be even cheaper if it were up to Andrew A. Lang Jr., owner of Millvale Industrial Park, home to a dozen small businesses.
Historic groups want to save that site because one of the buildings housed a brewery in the 19th century.
“There’s nothing historic about it,” Lang said of the building, which is now mostly a warehouse. “It’s been altered and remodeled 15 times. You’d never know a brewery ever existed there. Why does someone else have an interest in saving my place when I don’t?”
Tom Fox, PennDOT District 11 assistant executive for design, said while he may be inclined to accommodate Lang’s wish, federal laws require PennDOT to prove there’s no prudent and feasible alternative to buying and demolishing a historic structure, even though it might cost $20 million to save the one Lang owns.
Plans to rebuild the two miles of Route 28, known as the “death stretch” because of its accident history, have languished for years.
The highway, an extension of East Ohio Street past the Del Monte/Heinz plant, is a narrow four lanes with no divider or shoulders. Traffic bogs down at signals at the 31st and 40th street bridges.
PennDOT proposes spending $160 million to $200 million to reconstruct the stretch, although the timetable does not call for construction to begin before 2008.
Until six months ago, PennDOT’s design options would have eliminated St. Nicholas Church and Millvale Industrial Park and dislocated about 80 households, including some on Eggers Street atop Troy Hill. The plans would have meant constructing up to 20 miles of retaining walls over the two-mile stretch to shoehorn a limited-access expressway between the steep hillside on one side and Norfolk Southern Railway tracks on the other.
Fox credited George White, a retired civil engineering professor who is with the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, for coming up with new ideas that have since been modified to conform to the terrain and geometry at the two bridge intersections.
“My take on [the open house] is that the people favor Alternatives 5 and 6,” Fox said. “We’ll study the comments and recommend a final alternative for the draft environmental impact statement and hold a public hearing on it early next year.”
Nos. 5 and 6 would provide nonstop traffic flow on Route 28, as did the earlier plans, although the speed limit with No. 6 would be 40 mph and the horizontal profile would be narrow: a 5-foot sidewalk in front of St. Nicholas, a 2 1/2-foot-wide curb, two 12-foot southbound lanes, a concrete divider, two 12-foot northbound lanes and another 2 1/2-foot-wide curb.
Fox said accidents and breakdowns would stop traffic, as opposed to Alternative 5, which provides 10-foot-wide shoulders in each direction by elevating parts of the highway toward the river, over the railroad line.
White said special legislation could permit PennDOT to acquire half of the 52-foot-wide railroad right of way and build No. 6 as a first-class transportation facility at the present elevation, increasing the frontage at St. Nicholas and keeping the hillside in its natural state.
White said train traffic is so infrequent that Norfolk Southern does not need all of the four tracks passing through the site.
One more entity is planning to weigh in on PennDOT’s plans — the Riverlife Task Force, a group promoting preservation and controlled development along the city’s river corridors.
Attorney Ted McConnell of Kirkpartrick & Lockhart, a Downtown law firm that advises the task force, was at the open house, examining a total of 11 options that were posted on easels around the room.
“We’re concerned about the hillside, the visual impacts and the community impacts of what PennDOT plans to do,” he said. “We’re looking at the alternatives and determining if there are some appropriate mitigation measures that we can recommend.”
Joe Grata can be reached at jgrata@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1985.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Groups welcome Route 28 options
By Jim Ritchie
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, July 17, 2003PennDOT won’t decide until early 2004 whether to rebuild Route 28 through the St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Church or around the Pittsburgh-designated historic building.
Those who want to spare the church are happy now that PennDOT is considering two new ways of improving a 2-mile stretch of Route 28 from Millvale to Pittsburgh that would spare the building, in addition to two other plans that would require tearing down or moving the church.
“This is what we have been striving for,” said Robert Sladack, who co-chairs the Preserve Croatian Heritage Foundation that has been fighting to preserve the church, the first Croatian Catholic church in the United States. “Now, there is some light at the end of the tunnel.”
PennDOT hosted an open house Wednesday evening at the Three Rivers Rowing Association Boat House, on Washington’s Landing, putting two new concepts on display that would preserve the church. PennDOT now will select one of four proposals and intends to begin construction in 2008.
More than 100 people turned out for the open house.
“It’s difficult,” said Tom Fox, the assistant district engineer at PennDOT’s Allegheny County-based District 11 office. “I plan to sit down and look at what everybody said here tonight.”
The fate of the church situated just feet from the southern end of Route 28, also called the Allegheny Valley Expressway, has been the subject of a heated dispute. Early designs put the new road through the church property, which upset church members and preservationists.
The dispute prompted PennDOT to develop two concepts that spare the church by using elevated lanes.
Of equal concern are the 60,000 motorists who drive Route 28 daily. The project, which is estimated to cost between $140 million and $200 million, would eliminate the traffic signal intersections at the 31st Street and 40th Street bridges that are choke points.
By the time work begins in 2008, PennDOT intends to have finished building a direct connection between Route 28 and Interstate 279, Fox said. He wants construction on the link to begin in about three years.
Those fighting to save the church feel they’re now on the same page as PennDOT.
“We commend PennDOT for their creative solution to Route 28 improvements, their willingness to have open, public discussion and their sensitivity in saving our local heritage,” said a statement from Preservation Pittsburgh.
Aside from the church, there are some residential concerns, especially for people who live in Troy Hill atop the hillside adjacent to Route 28.
“My concern is if my house is going to be impacted by this,” Rita Steinmetz said. “My other concern is the stability of the hillside and the possible noise effects.”
The owner of the Millvale Industrial Park, which sits along Route 28, is unhappy that the two new PennDOT options would spare his 6-acre property, which is home to 12 businesses. Andrew Lang wants PennDOT to buy his property when the stretch of Route 28 is rebuilt.
“I want them to take the building,” Lang said.
Jim Ritchie can be reached at jritchie@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7933.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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PennDOT offers four options for Route 28
By David M. Brown
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, July 15, 2003State transportation officials on Monday unveiled two proposals for widening Route 28 that would spare the historic St. Nicholas Church on the North Side.
Two other proposals still under consideration, however, put the 100-year-old building in the path of a wrecking ball. Pittsburgh City Council in 2001 approved a historic designation for the church, which belongs to the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. The historical designation doesn’t rule out demolition of the building, but it complicates the process.
Engineers from the state Department of Transportation yesterday outlined four remaining alternatives for the project during a briefing for public officials on a study of estimated costs and the feasibility of the proposals.
“This at least … gives some viable alternatives for public consideration,” said Edward Pugh, an aide to state Sen. Jack Wagner, a Beechview Democrat. Pugh was among about two dozen municipal representatives and legislative aides who attended the session at the state Department of Environmental Protection offices on Washington’s Landing in Pittsburgh.
To present the four alternatives to the public, PennDOT will hold an open house Wednesday from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Three Rivers Rowing Association boathouse, 300 Waterfront Drive, also on Washington’s Landing.
The road project, expected to cost between $140 million and $200 million, is expected to unclog traffic along a 2-mile corridor and make Route 28 safer by separating southbound and northbound traffic and widening the existing lanes. Federal highway funds are expected to cover about 80 percent of the cost.
An alternative still being considered that would spare St. Nicholas Church — site of the first Croatian Roman Catholic parish in the Western Hemisphere — is a modified version of a plan developed by George R. White, chairman of the transportation committee of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
“You live again to fight another day,” White said when told PennDOT had advanced a version of his plan.
The plan — which involves elevating the highway above railroad tracks that run adjacent to Route 28 — would be the more expensive of the alternatives, according to PennDOT’s estimates. It would cost about $200 million. The next closest alternative would cost about $160 million.
“I don’t know what the politicians will decide, but the cost is close enough … that it merits public debate,” White said.
Other alternatives include:
Construction that cuts into the hillside with terraces in the Troy Hill area of the North Side, cutting a swath through properties along Route 28, including the church, the Millvale Industrial Park and Feilbach Street in Millvale.
Construction that would cut less into the hillside but would cause railroad tracks to be moved, as well as demolition of the church and industrial park.
Construction of an “urban artery” that would be more narrow than the other alternatives because it would have only 2-foot gutters, instead of 10-foot shoulders. This plan would avoid the church.
All options include four 12-foot lanes, with auxiliary lanes for traffic moving to and from the 31st Street and 40th Street bridges, said Thomas C. Fox, an assistant district engineer with PennDOT. A key element of the project is to keep northbound and southbound traffic from being stopped by traffic signals which make it possible for other vehicles to use the bridges.
Construction is not expected to start before 2008. The project is slated to be completed in 2011.
David M. Brown can be reached at dbrown@tribweb.com or (412) 380-5614.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review