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  #2841  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2019, 8:21 PM
themaguffin themaguffin is offline
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I don't contribute much here, but this site is a great tool to see what's going on in the area, especially since City Data has crumbled into such a cesspool thanks to three or four posters (if you go there, I'm sure you know who I mean).
It always has been and it's also disturbing how much a presence that a certain extremist crowd has on that site (if you were to visit one of their sub forums in particular) but it permeates into all of the various city sub forums, including Pittsburgh.
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  #2842  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2019, 8:49 PM
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pj3000 pj3000 is offline
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If Gothic quad buildings were built around the Cathedral lawn back in the 30s as part of the plan, then it would be great, but they weren’t. And building replicas today would just come off as a bit cloying to me.

Personally, I’m just not that into the medieval town center aesthetic, particularly not for a contemporary urban university campus. While I get the whole bit about the gothic Cathedral and Chapel being out of place, I think they’ve both come to hold down their surroundings quite well, so well that the setting is one of the most unique, impressive, and peaceful one can find anywhere on an urban campus.
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  #2843  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2019, 9:02 PM
eschaton eschaton is offline
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Walnut Capital is expanding Bakery Square, having bought the two-story Matthews building next to the complex.

It looks like for the time being they plan to keep it, and are remarketing the office space as "Bakery Office Four." It opens a lot of options for them in the future though.
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  #2844  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2019, 9:07 PM
Bricktrimble Bricktrimble is offline
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Originally Posted by MarkMyWords View Post
Most emphatically disagree. Those areas provide very needed breathing space on the campus, and serve as suitable settings for both the Cathedral and Heinz Chapel. I can see the stretch of land to the southeast of the Cathedral, facing the Carnegie along Forbes, being the location for some low-rise construction. But to match the materials and design of Klauder would be so prohibitive, and fought mercilessly by so many, that it's not practical.
While using archaic building methods might be cost-prohibitive, buildings that use those same materials with current construction techniques are possible. Look at Villanova University's recent project "The Commons" done in Gothic style: https://www1.villanova.edu/universit...t-to-last.html. Someone there thought it was a wise investment. Virginia Tech uses Hokie stone for most of their projects. And here are a couple of projects at Harvard and Yale (more Ivy League examples unfortunately) where masonry (brick) was used in an interesting ways: https://www.architectmagazine.com/de...m-architects_o and https://www.archdaily.com/772590/toz...h-architecture. Decision makers, especially at universities, probably consider life-cycle costs more than initial costs - or at least I hope they do.
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  #2845  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2019, 9:18 PM
BrianTH BrianTH is offline
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It is probably worth mentioning that I generally think the idea of sticking a park-like university "campus" in the middle of a city sucks.

I don't mind universities being in the middle of cities, but then I think ideally they are just integrated into the city as much as possible, ideally with the same density of use, good street wall effects, ground floor uses open to the general public, and so on. Some green space is fine too, but there are general urban planning guidelines on how much and in what form, which I think should be applied to universities just as much as any other urban enterprise--including, ideally, very little of that green space actually being under their control. Instead, they should be public parks and such.

Again a little history: "campus" literally comes from the Latin word for "field"--same sort of etymology as to go camping, a military camp, and so on. The "modern" usage for universities is usually credited to Princeton in 1774, then the College of New Jersey, which was separated from the nearby town of Princeton by a field which was called a "campus." So, it literally implied being OUTSIDE of and separated from a town.

Of course there was an old tradition of universities being "cloistered", which did date back to the medieval European universities, which often grew out of monastic communities associated with cathedrals. That's more or less the origin of the common college/university "quadrangle," and while I have my issues with cloisters in modern cities, I have made peace with urban universities doing at least some of that.

And that is still how most urban-setting European universities work--many are quite well-integrated, or at most have some cloisters/quadrangles tucked into an overall urban design. But they usually don't have big fields setting them apart from the town/city.

OK, but for various reasons, the park-like "campus" became a paradigm university setting for many Americans.

But that's just not good urban form, and it chews up way too much land.

And so my feeling is that if you want a university with a park-like campus, you should have to go outside of a city to find it. If instead you want a university with a central city location, it should be built on the same plans and forms as any other urban enterprise.
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  #2846  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2019, 9:28 PM
BrianTH BrianTH is offline
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Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
It looks like for the time being they plan to keep it, and are remarketing the office space as "Bakery Office Four." It opens a lot of options for them in the future though.
I don't mind the building itself (although if they wanted to replace it with something taller, that would be fine too).

But I am definitely interested in the surface parking lot they apparently also acquired in the deal:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/65...!4d-79.9145386

Particularly with the new garage being built just down the street, I would think that lot is primed for redevelopment (of course maybe it would include the building too, if so).
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  #2847  
Old Posted Oct 1, 2019, 11:02 PM
bmust71 bmust71 is offline
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Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
Walnut Capital is expanding Bakery Square, having bought the two-story Matthews building next to the complex.

It looks like for the time being they plan to keep it, and are remarketing the office space as "Bakery Office Four." It opens a lot of options for them in the future though.
Without knowing the building’s condition, my reaction was that they’ll gut and renovate it. You think they might tear it down and go vertical?
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  #2848  
Old Posted Oct 2, 2019, 12:52 AM
BenM BenM is offline
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Does anyone know what project was being developed in the Smallman St. building that just had a fire?
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  #2849  
Old Posted Oct 2, 2019, 1:14 AM
highlander206 highlander206 is offline
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Originally Posted by themaguffin View Post
It always has been and it's also disturbing how much a presence that a certain extremist crowd has on that site (if you were to visit one of their sub forums in particular) but it permeates into all of the various city sub forums, including Pittsburgh.
You're right, it has just gotten worse than it's ever been in the Pittsburgh sub IMO with one poster's pretty open racism and another's constant acting like Weirton is the new "it town" while Pittsburgh is on the decline.

Anyway though, I do like as how others have mentioned that the Heinz Chapel is in a more park like atmosphere. I think it blends in well that way with the Schenley Oval nearby.
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  #2850  
Old Posted Oct 2, 2019, 1:18 AM
eschaton eschaton is offline
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Originally Posted by bmust71 View Post
Without knowing the building’s condition, my reaction was that they’ll gut and renovate it. You think they might tear it down and go vertical?
I think they're keeping their options open for the time being. They might be able to expand further down the block later by buying that BRM warehouse. Or on the other hand, the existing Bakery Square building which shares a party wall is a pretty nondescript bit of one-story retail junk which could easily (once the leases for West Elm and the other businesses are up) be knocked down to have a larger developable space. Add all three together and you have a parcel with about the same footprint as the big Bakery Square office buildings.

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Originally Posted by BenM View Post
Does anyone know what project was being developed in the Smallman St. building that just had a fire?
It was the warehouse immediately across the street from the Terminal Building. Apparently the damage seems to be fairly minor, and the project will likely go ahead as scheduled.
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  #2851  
Old Posted Oct 2, 2019, 12:42 PM
Don't Be That Guy Don't Be That Guy is offline
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You're right, it has just gotten worse than it's ever been in the Pittsburgh sub IMO with one poster's pretty open racism and another's constant acting like Weirton is the new "it town" while Pittsburgh is on the decline.
That site is a troll farm, or a least a haven for troll farm activity, that obviously values clicks over the quality. If you spend any time there it's obvious that there are a handful of posters in the various forums that seem to post at all hours of the day with openly racist, extremely right-wing opinions, and calling that activity out will get you banned. A quick bit of internet detective work shows that it's owned by a US-based company that only has eight direct employees. How does a company maintain a site with over 15,000 daily posts with only a small executive team and a secretary? Anyway, the site outsources or works through a subsidiary and actual maintenance seems to be based in Poland and other Eastern European countries.

And that was with 10 minutes of searching, which is more time than it deserved so back to on-topic discussion.

Last edited by Don't Be That Guy; Oct 2, 2019 at 1:54 PM.
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  #2852  
Old Posted Oct 2, 2019, 1:59 PM
eschaton eschaton is offline
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PBT has a little article up noting that the site of Cafe Sam, which closed last year, is now up for sale, and being marketed as a redevelopment opportunity.

It has an interesting location in the Baum-Centre corridor - right behind the Courtyard Marriott and across the street from Morrow Park City Apartments. Not only is the converted foursquare out of scale with the surrounding development now, there are three other parcels with surface parking which are part of the deal - a total of 15,600 square feet in all.

Of course, there's plenty of junk which goes in on Baum and Centre too - seemingly because when UNC zoning was established it varied from LNC in two ways - allowing for higher-intensity commercial and residential development, and also allowing for auto-centric businesses like drive thru fast food. And it's possible UPMC just snags the site and uses it for surface parking for a few decades (since they own most of the rest of the block - and plan to build a UPMC Shadyside expansion there). We'll have to wait and see.
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  #2853  
Old Posted Oct 2, 2019, 6:03 PM
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AaronPGH AaronPGH is offline
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I'd personally love to see a 10-15 story office building in the Cafe Sam spot, to be honest. Round out the building mix a bit.
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  #2854  
Old Posted Oct 2, 2019, 6:52 PM
BrianTH BrianTH is offline
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Originally Posted by AaronPGH View Post
I'd personally love to see a 10-15 story office building in the Cafe Sam spot, to be honest. Round out the building mix a bit.
That would be cool.

Obviously that whole section is painfully underutilized. I understand the difficulty of dealing with UPMC, but the fast food places kill me.
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  #2855  
Old Posted Oct 2, 2019, 11:16 PM
MN/WI MN/WI is offline
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Love Pittsburgh.
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  #2856  
Old Posted Oct 3, 2019, 2:10 AM
mikebarbaro mikebarbaro is offline
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Originally Posted by BenM View Post
Does anyone know what project was being developed in the Smallman St. building that just had a fire?
That is 1600 Smallman. The fire shouldn't set the project back that much. The building has strong bones of steel and brick which weren't very affected. The project website is below....

https://www.mccafferyinc.com/portfolio/1600-smallman
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  #2857  
Old Posted Oct 3, 2019, 3:22 PM
BenM BenM is offline
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Originally Posted by mikebarbaro View Post
That is 1600 Smallman. The fire shouldn't set the project back that much. The building has strong bones of steel and brick which weren't very affected. The project website is below....

https://www.mccafferyinc.com/portfolio/1600-smallman
Thank you. I can't wait to see what this stretch of Smallman will look like in a couple of years.
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  #2858  
Old Posted Oct 3, 2019, 6:35 PM
eschaton eschaton is offline
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New Planning Commission Presentation up for next week: Only two new items, but both of them are fairly sizable.

1. A brand new - previously unannounced - building at Bakery Square, which they are calling "Bakery Refresh 2020." Essentially it replaces the worst portions of Bakery Square - the junky little one-story building (formerly occupied by Coffee Tree Roasters, and now a Millies pop-up) and some of the surface parking lot (the row closest to the street - around ten spaces). In its place will be a new two-story building with additional restaurant space (looks like 2-3 restaurants) which will be connected to the historic Bakery Square building by a two story "conservatory" (I think it's an atrium, but whatever). The space available for outdoor seating and recreation will also be widened. Social loses their outdoor seating - but apparently gains year-round seating in the atrium - which will stay buttoned up in the winter. The new development very helpfully screens the limited remaining parking (which is more akin to head-in streetside parking than a lot now) from Penn Avenue. And they are building a new bus stop for Bakery Square. I was just down there the other week with my wife and noted how out-of-scale and wrong this area now felt, so it's great they're doing something with it.

2. Walnut Capital's new Innovation Research Tower, being built at the corner of Fifth and Halket, has finally reached the Planning Commission. As a refresher, it's a ten-story 268,000 square foot building mostly used for office/lab space, with a small amount of ground-floor retail. It is being built just down the block from Sky Vue, taking out a number of low-scale buildings (all but one pretty unimpressive from a historic preservation standpoint) along with some surface parking lots. I'm not crazy about the design (something more neo-traditional world look better in Oakland, IMHO), but I like the use of blue panels (an unusual color for buildings these days) it fills the block well, and it will look nice from street level. Forbes Ave view is flat and fugly, but they're probably expecting the back side of the block to fill in at a similar density and block the view eventually anyway. Looks like the plan is for steel to start going up by next summer. It will be interesting to see what occupies the "community driven retail" that OPDC got them to agree to along Fifth.

In addition, there is a new ZBA agenda up for October 24th. There's a handful of small projects of some interest here.

1. New Dollar General on Brownsville Road in Carrick. Looks like it's going to replace this old Long John Silvers building.

2. A new eight-unit, three-story apartment building in the Middle Hill. No address is given, but judging by the parcel information, it's here. Honestly, it seems like a lot of land for just an eight-unit building.

3. Anew construction house on Melwood Avenue in Polish Hill. Address is here - where an existing building sits - suggesting this is a teardown and replace - to the best of my knowledge the first in Polish Hill.

4. Construction of a new one-story community center in Homewood. The address says here, which is where infill houses are already going. I'm guessing this community center is already partially under construction, because I've passed by one recently while driving.

Edit: Also, PBT has a new article up about several small developments on Ellsworth in Shadyside. To recap, a new restaurant is opening where Elbow Room was located, the replacement plan for the vacant dental office continues apace and - new to me - there are plans to replace the former Bites and Brews building (which is half destroyed at the moment) with a new office building. It's unclear what the scale of this is going to be.

Edit 2: This month's Bloomfield-Garfield Bulletin is a bit light on development stories, with one notable exception: West Penn Hospital presented a final version of its new 10-year master plan to the community on September 4th. Presumably it will end up online some time for city approval, but to summarize, they plan to build a new eight-story garage on Gross (almost certainly here), build a new outpatient pavilion in the same general area (unclear exactly where based upon the bad wording in the article) and demolish and rebuild the existing Mellon Pavillion (the building that fronts on Penn Avenue) with the new building planned to be designed in such a way as to provide a more welcoming pedestrian entrance from Bloomfield. The hospital wants to reconfigure Gross for two-way traffic, which is a great idea, but had a negative reception from the neighborhood in the past.

Last edited by eschaton; Oct 3, 2019 at 7:13 PM.
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  #2859  
Old Posted Oct 4, 2019, 1:29 PM
Bricktrimble Bricktrimble is offline
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Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
I'm not crazy about the design (something more neo-traditional world look better in Oakland, IMHO), but I like the use of blue panels (an unusual color for buildings these days) it fills the block well, and it will look nice from street level.
Blue is the new orange!
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  #2860  
Old Posted Oct 7, 2019, 1:28 PM
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Jonboy1983 Jonboy1983 is offline
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Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
New Planning Commission Presentation up for next week: Only two new items, but both of them are fairly sizable.

1. A brand new - previously unannounced - building at Bakery Square, which they are calling "Bakery Refresh 2020." Essentially it replaces the worst portions of Bakery Square - the junky little one-story building (formerly occupied by Coffee Tree Roasters, and now a Millies pop-up) and some of the surface parking lot (the row closest to the street - around ten spaces). In its place will be a new two-story building with additional restaurant space (looks like 2-3 restaurants) which will be connected to the historic Bakery Square building by a two story "conservatory" (I think it's an atrium, but whatever). The space available for outdoor seating and recreation will also be widened. Social loses their outdoor seating - but apparently gains year-round seating in the atrium - which will stay buttoned up in the winter. The new development very helpfully screens the limited remaining parking (which is more akin to head-in streetside parking than a lot now) from Penn Avenue. And they are building a new bus stop for Bakery Square. I was just down there the other week with my wife and noted how out-of-scale and wrong this area now felt, so it's great they're doing something with it.

2. Walnut Capital's new Innovation Research Tower, being built at the corner of Fifth and Halket, has finally reached the Planning Commission. As a refresher, it's a ten-story 268,000 square foot building mostly used for office/lab space, with a small amount of ground-floor retail. It is being built just down the block from Sky Vue, taking out a number of low-scale buildings (all but one pretty unimpressive from a historic preservation standpoint) along with some surface parking lots. I'm not crazy about the design (something more neo-traditional world look better in Oakland, IMHO), but I like the use of blue panels (an unusual color for buildings these days) it fills the block well, and it will look nice from street level. Forbes Ave view is flat and fugly, but they're probably expecting the back side of the block to fill in at a similar density and block the view eventually anyway. Looks like the plan is for steel to start going up by next summer. It will be interesting to see what occupies the "community driven retail" that OPDC got them to agree to along Fifth.

In addition, there is a new ZBA agenda up for October 24th. There's a handful of small projects of some interest here.

1. New Dollar General on Brownsville Road in Carrick. Looks like it's going to replace this old Long John Silvers building.

2. A new eight-unit, three-story apartment building in the Middle Hill. No address is given, but judging by the parcel information, it's here. Honestly, it seems like a lot of land for just an eight-unit building.

3. Anew construction house on Melwood Avenue in Polish Hill. Address is here - where an existing building sits - suggesting this is a teardown and replace - to the best of my knowledge the first in Polish Hill.

4. Construction of a new one-story community center in Homewood. The address says here, which is where infill houses are already going. I'm guessing this community center is already partially under construction, because I've passed by one recently while driving.

Edit: Also, PBT has a new article up about several small developments on Ellsworth in Shadyside. To recap, a new restaurant is opening where Elbow Room was located, the replacement plan for the vacant dental office continues apace and - new to me - there are plans to replace the former Bites and Brews building (which is half destroyed at the moment) with a new office building. It's unclear what the scale of this is going to be.

Edit 2: This month's Bloomfield-Garfield Bulletin is a bit light on development stories, with one notable exception: West Penn Hospital presented a final version of its new 10-year master plan to the community on September 4th. Presumably it will end up online some time for city approval, but to summarize, they plan to build a new eight-story garage on Gross (almost certainly here), build a new outpatient pavilion in the same general area (unclear exactly where based upon the bad wording in the article) and demolish and rebuild the existing Mellon Pavillion (the building that fronts on Penn Avenue) with the new building planned to be designed in such a way as to provide a more welcoming pedestrian entrance from Bloomfield. The hospital wants to reconfigure Gross for two-way traffic, which is a great idea, but had a negative reception from the neighborhood in the past.
I remember when that Long John Silver's was built! That's got to be at least 30 years ago; I think I was in kindergarten at the time - or about to be anyway... Still, that's going to be a Dollar General? That land seems small for that. Considering there's typically a loading area that needs to accommodate a tractor trailer. We put one in our township a few years ago, and I know that was one of the criteria - ample loading/unloading space for an 18-wheeler...

On the Walnut Capital project, I see that as an overall gain for the area. It is unfortunate that one interesting piece of architecture will go away (I'm sure you were referring to that one building about 3 units from the corner). At least it won't give way to something less than desirable from an urban planning stand point.
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Last edited by Jonboy1983; Oct 7, 2019 at 2:25 PM. Reason: adding remarks regarding another point in the quoted post
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