PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown III

[highlander206]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Acrisure Stadium!!

Oh god, that's terrible

Coming on the heels off last season's awful team, this name could portend a bad stretch for the Steelers.

What are the odds that Kraft Heinz is fully out of Pittsburgh within 5 years?

I don't think this reflects on the future Kraft Heinz here, because apparently this corporation is going to be paying over 10 million dollars a year for the naming rights. In comparison, Heinz paid 57 million over 21 years. They simply offered a payday to the Steelers leagues above what nearly any other corporation would pay for the naming rights to a mid-sized city's stadium. Kraft-Heinz as far as I know has generally held its Pittsburgh corporate employment steady around or just under 800 employees after the vulture capitalists of 3G gutted employment here and all over the world for Heinz as much as they could. Illinois has not been doing very well in recent years with retaining major corporations (Caterpillar and Boeing have announced recently they're heading out of Chicago), and the cost savings of having part of their corporate operations in Pittsburgh is probably totally worth it on the financial sheet.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by highlander206

I don't think this reflects on the future Kraft Heinz here, because apparently this corporation is going to be paying over 10 million dollars a year for the naming rights. In comparison, Heinz paid 57 million over 21 years. They simply offered a payday to the Steelers leagues above what nearly any other corporation would pay for the naming rights to a mid-sized city's stadium. Kraft-Heinz as far as I know has generally held its Pittsburgh corporate employment steady around or just under 800 employees after the vulture capitalists of 3G gutted employment here and all over the world for Heinz as much as they could. Illinois has not been doing very well in recent years with retaining major corporations (Caterpillar and Boeing have announced recently they're heading out of Chicago), and the cost savings of having part of their corporate operations in Pittsburgh is probably totally worth it on the financial sheet.

You know what, now you've got me thinking; How about a nice new 1,000 ft Kraft Heinz world HQ in downtown Pgh...

[eschaton]

In general, this is just emblematic of why selling off naming rights to the highest bidder is problematic.

The businesses that care the most are ones which have deep pockets, but low brand recognition. Actually having any real tie to the city is entirely optional.

[highlander206]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

You know what, now you've got me thinking; How about a nice new 1,000 ft Kraft Heinz world HQ in downtown Pgh...

I could be off base here but I wish Pennsylvania could be more proactive with trying to lure businesses from relatively nearby states like New York and Illinois as we can offer much more affordable costs with certain things such as real estate in both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

In general, this is just emblematic of why selling off naming rights to the highest bidder is problematic.

The businesses that care the most are ones which have deep pockets, but low brand recognition. Actually having any real tie to the city is entirely optional.

I absolutely agree. Even if you adjust for inflation, the annual amount this insurance company no one has ever heard of will be paying is over doubled what Heinz paid. Everyone knows what Heinz and Kraft are, so they do not need to spend $10 million a year to have their names said on football broadcasts no more than 10 Sundays a year

[eschaton]

Not sure if anyone is interested, but preliminary designs for the new Oakland Connector BRT stations are here.

Not terrible from a design perspective, but the Port Authority (err, I guess it's PRT now) continues to not understand what rapid transit means. One easy way to have people pay prior to loading, with a gated station where you swipe your card (or whatever) on the way in. They could easily integrate it from the ground up here. Maybe with modern card systems there's less of a need however - I find when I take the P1 95% of people aren't slowed down at all by the payment process.

[Zachary R. English]

Those BRT stations/shelters are perfectly fine, but having just visited Richmond, VA and seeing their ***gorgeous*** new BRT stations, I feel like we’re missing a rare opportunity to do something really special here.

[seaswan]

Originally Posted by Zachary R. English

Those BRT stations/shelters are perfectly fine, but having just visited Richmond, VA and seeing their ***gorgeous*** new BRT stations, I feel like we’re missing a rare opportunity to do something really special here.

I was there last year and they really are gorgeous. The protective glass that is also a map of the system is SO cool. Add in the exposed wood and they're really pretty. For a project that feels like its taken a decade, these are incredibly bland.

[BrianTH]

Next Pittsburgh article discussing what we have been discussing, the ongoing transition of Downtown from being mostly an employment center to much more of a residential neighborhood too:

https://nextpittsburgh.com/features/...ential-market/

In terms of development projects all of this is old news, but they also have a nice discussion of City/County/State efforts to incentivize some (relatively) affordable Downtown units:

Earlier this month, Mayor Ed Gainey and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald announced the city, county and state will create a $9 million pilot program aimed at increasing the supply of affordable workforce housing, starting with a $2.1 million allocation of American Rescue Plan Act funding to the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh (URA). The state is ponying up $3 million. . . .

Guidelines for the Downtown Conversion Pilot Program are still being developed, Gainey says, but the goal is “to improve the vitality of Downtown Pittsburgh by converting a portion of the vacant commercial office space into mixed-income developments that include affordable and workforce housing.” . . .

Developing so-called “workforce housing” means creating affordable living spaces for young professionals and those in the retail, restaurant, theater and other service industries. About 62% of those working Downtown make less than $70,000 a year, says Waldrup. The program would provide a subsidy to developers to offer at least 10% of units at reduced rent for a set period of time.

[BrianTH]

Flying cars are coming to the Pittsburgh airport!!!

https://nextpittsburgh.com/latest-ne...m-the-airport/

OK, no actual FAA approved technologies, no timeline, some rather serious practical questions still unanswered . . . but they at least sound semi-serious about the possibility.

And my understanding is some people, at least, think electric versions of vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) may actually finally crack this nut. That is in part because any fossil-fuel version of this technology has been obnoxiously loud. But also environmentally unfriendly.

Still, there is a serious "last-mile" sort of problem--even if you could, say, viably get in one at the airport and get somewhere over, say, the East End, where would you land, and then how would you get from there to your actual final destination?

So we'll see.

[BrianTH]

Everything that is old is new again . . . this article summarizes all the retail plans for the former Kaufmann's:

https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsbu...t?oid=22050286

You've got the Target which just opened last Sunday, Burlington Coat Factory moving from its former location, and Five Below.

The funny thing is once long ago, center-city enclosed shopping arcades like the one that used to dominate the Union Trust Building were the go-to form for single-destination shopping trips. But then big "department stores" started competing for that business. But then with the rise of the automobile, "shopping malls" recreated something similar to the old shopping arcades, but now in suburban locations surrounded by parking, with department stores as "anchors". But then, not least due to the rise of Internet shopping, both departments stores and suburban malls in general started failing. And COVID didn't exactly help.

However, Internet shopping is still not an ideal solution for on-demand, low-cost items.

OK, so now you have all these discount retailers collecting under one roof Downtown. Kinda like a shopping arcade!

And hopefully this is sustainable for at least a while.

[eschaton]

So, not much of interest in the last few ZBA agendas, but I'll make a few notes here.

1. Infill house going in Polish Hill. This is the location.

2. Site layout for the soon-to-be-upgraded Homewood Park. It's essentially doubling as it's now going to include a parcel fronting on Hamilton which formerly housed a small school/early childhood education center, and will shift from having a baseball field to a full football field.

3. This posting is completely screwed up, with the attachments not having anything to do with the cover page, the attachments a building on Smallman Street which was recently rehabbed. The interesting thing about the presentation is the detailed rendering, not because of the supposed reason for the application (which shows a small Parkmatic car elevator put on the side yard) but because it shows renderings of some non-existent six-story residential building on the parking lot further up block. I am guessing the firm accidentally let it slip the property owners have bigger plans here.

4. Two new two-unit structures in South Side Flats. Looks like the plan is to replace these. Pretty ugly setup which results in two sets of double driveways with a cantilevered unit above. Of course there's a building next door with more-or-less the same setup. Still, given the space they are working with here, and curb cuts purportedly needing to be minimized now, I would think that an alternate setup with 3-4 units sharing a single driveway would be more ideal.

5. . There was an earlier ZBA case with only a few of these. I still see no real evidence that this is an affordable housing project, which is interesting...I didn't think Larimer had advanced to the point of supporting market-rate housing.

[highlander206]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Everything that is old is new again . . . this article summarizes all the retail plans for the former Kaufmann's:

https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsbu...t?oid=22050286

You've got the Target which just opened last Sunday, Burlington Coat Factory moving from its former location, and Five Below.

The funny thing is once long ago, center-city enclosed shopping arcades like the one that used to dominate the Union Trust Building were the go-to form for single-destination shopping trips. But then big "department stores" started competing for that business. But then with the rise of the automobile, "shopping malls" recreated something similar to the old shopping arcades, but now in suburban locations surrounded by parking, with department stores as "anchors". But then, not least due to the rise of Internet shopping, both departments stores and suburban malls in general started failing. And COVID didn't exactly help.

However, Internet shopping is still not an ideal solution for on-demand, low-cost items.

OK, so now you have all these discount retailers collecting under one roof Downtown. Kinda like a shopping arcade!

And hopefully this is sustainable for at least a while.

With Downtown workers, residents, and Point Park and Duquesne students, I think the Target at a minimum will be successful for years to come. Duquesne can be an afterthought to many with the Downtown area, but it's only a 10 minute walk from the new Target.

In other news, PPG Place and EQT Plaza are going up for sale. I really don't think this is a big deal, but to boomer yinzers in the comments who moved away and haven't had a clue about anything going on in Pittsburgh for 20 years and only subscribe to the PG for their Steelers news, it's the end of the world for our fair city.


https://www.post-gazette.com/busines...s/202207190126

[eschaton]

July 26 Planning Commission is now online. Three "new" items:

1. PNC's plans for adaptive reuse of 433 Wood Street (the Roberts and "Skinny" buildings). The most notable thing here is they plan to demolish the building alongside them (non-historic two-story building which houses Mama Lucia's Pizzeria) and build a side annex to the Roberts building of essentially the same height (five stories) to house a new elevator/stairwell. I'm less keen on the fact that it seems the Roberts Building will basically be event space, meaning largely inactive most of the time.

2. Point Park University is making minor changes to the "Parklet" around its controversial Playhouse Theater. This basically amounts just to adding fencing to the three "gates" - blocking off access by the public. It's certainly a negative development. I wonder if they had issues during the pandemic with homeless people camping out in the plaza overnight.

3. The second part of CMU's master plan presentation. This seems less substantive than Part 1 on the 12th, focusing on mobility, infrastructure, and neighborhood engagement.

[eschaton]

It's nice to see the plans for the 230-unit apartment building where the Shakespeare Street Giant Eagle used to be are continuing to move forward. The grocery store is being closed this Saturday, with demolition soon to begin. Sounds like the site plan will still need approval from the Planning Commission, but now that the zoning has been changed to UNC (and the grocery store is gonna be closed) final approval may be a bit easier.

The design seems to have changed from the last time I saw it. It looks like the grocery store itself will be mostly in a single-story building fronting on Penn Avenue, with the apartments stepped back from the back side of the property. This is likely an attempt to placate the NIMBYs in the Village of Shadyside who complained about shadows being cast on their homes.

[bmust71]

Originally Posted by eschaton

It's nice to see the plans for the 230-unit apartment building where the Shakespeare Street Giant Eagle used to be are continuing to move forward. The grocery store is being closed this Saturday, with demolition soon to begin. Sounds like the site plan will still need approval from the Planning Commission, but now that the zoning has been changed to UNC (and the grocery store is gonna be closed) final approval may be a bit easier.

The design seems to have changed from the last time I saw it. It looks like the grocery store itself will be mostly in a single-story building fronting on Penn Avenue, with the apartments stepped back from the back side of the property. This is likely an attempt to placate the NIMBYs in the Village of Shadyside who complained about shadows being cast on their homes.

Here's the latest presentation if anyone is interested:

https://www.eastliberty.org/wp-conte...taffReview.pdf

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by bmust71

Here's the latest presentation if anyone is interested:

https://www.eastliberty.org/wp-conte...taffReview.pdf

Hrrm...the garage also looks lower than I remember it. Seems they adjusted it to take up more space but have less stories? Seems like it's only a two-story structure now.

I could deal with the underbuilt back side more if there was more of a continuation of the street wall along Penn, but if this is the compromise needed to get it past insane Shadyside NIMBYs, so be it.

[AaronPGH]

I missed that this was going to be a new Market District. Will it be replacing the old one down Centre? Or in addition to? I'm guessing this is their attempt to step it up against the new Whole Foods.

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

I missed that this was going to be a new Market District. Will it be replacing the old one down Centre? Or in addition to? I'm guessing this is their attempt to step it up against the new Whole Foods.

This will be in addition to the Centre Ave store. This project was planned years ago. It will be nice having two all new grocery stores in close proximity. The Centre Ave Market District is cramped and small. The Waterworks Market District is insane at times. I usually go to Giant Eagle in Penn Hills or Verona. Is the Trader Joe’s store considered small? It’s definitely overcrowded. Would Trader Joe’s fit comfortably in the former Whole Foods location? 🤔

[AaronPGH]

Originally Posted by wpipkins2

This will be in addition to the Centre Ave store. This project was planned years ago. It will be nice having two all new grocery stores in close proximity. The Centre Ave Market District is cramped and small. The Waterworks Market District is insane at times. I usually go to Giant Eagle in Penn Hills or Verona. Is the Trader Joe’s store considered small? It’s definitely overcrowded. Would Trader Joe’s fit comfortably in the former Whole Foods location? 🤔

TJs is definitely overdue for an upgrade at this point. I don't bother with it, it's chaos.

[BenM]

Originally Posted by highlander206

, but to boomer yinzers in the comments who moved away and haven't had a clue about anything going on in Pittsburgh for 20 years and only subscribe to the PG for their Steelers news,

You talkin' 'bout me?