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Old Posted Oct 22, 2019, 7:15 PM
PITairport PITairport is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Pittsburgh/Anchorage
Posts: 116
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
Unfortunately, I think that a big commercial tower is pretty much impossible right now in Pittsburgh. Our commercial real estate prices aren't high enough to build on spec, and there aren't the sort of anchor tenants which would be needed in order to justify the financing.

Unless PNC decided to build yet another one, I struggle to think about who would occupy it. UPMC seems like an obvious answer, but their top-level corporate (beyond the individual hospitals) is pretty thin on the ground. Dick's Sporting Goods is really the only remaining suburban corporate HQ in our metro (and as a retailer - and a money loser - I don't think they'd want to take on the cost of moving downtown).
There are plenty of large corporations headquartered in the suburbs beyond Dick's. Consol Energy, FedEx Ground, Westinghouse, Mylan (who will be inverting their inversion and returning their "HQ" to the US). I'm not suggesting any of those would move downtown, and EQT is rumored to join the other energy companies at Southpointe when their downtown lease runs out. As far as DicK's, it's not a matter of their ability to move downtown but their willingness to do so. Their campus is purpose built for them, contains baseball diamonds, basketball courts, trails, etc etc... the things that go with a sporting goods theme. The CEO can walk from the office to the company jet. They aren't going anywhere even if the company's finances improve. In fact they had a major expansion planned where they are a couple years ago.


FNC is probably the best bet to anchor a downtown tower. They anchored a couple nice mixed use developments in North Carolina as regional headquarters and I wouldn't expect anything less for their future HQ here. Here's the one in Charlotte:

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