PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown III

[eschaton]

I just saw today that apparently Dormont is passing a really comprehensive rezoning plan which is...basically what Pittsburgh should be doing.

Here is the link. Some highlight:

1. Total elimination of single-family zoning (two-units are legal everywhere).

2. Accessory units can be built in the rear of any residential zone.

3. Significant upzoning of many of the more highly-trafficked residential corridors, allowing for multifamily and some commercial mixed in (planned to be on corner lots).

4. Two new TOD-zoned areas around the major T stops which will allow for buildings of up to eight stories.

5. Reduction of parking minimums borough-wide down to one space for every two units.

6. Allowance for commercial buildings of up to six stories along Patomac and West Liberty.

Overall, there's very little here I can complain about at first glance. There appears to be mandates of ground-floor commercial in some areas, which I think is potentially a bad idea.

Why isn't the city doing this?!?

[Austinlee]

^Nice! Hope we see more of that.

[shantyside]

ace hotel update: "The owners of a shuttered Ace Hotel in Pittsburgh's trendy East Liberty neighborhood told a Pennsylvania state court Monday there was no proof they were selling the business and therefore no reason for Ace's parent company to haul them to court to keep the hotelier's name on the converted YMCA building.

Although the New York-based boutique hotel brand had claimed the Pittsburgh property's ownership had run out of money and was trying to force Ace out in order to sell the building and rebrand it, an attorney for owner Y Hotel LP told the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas there was no evidence in the lawsuit that the hotel had been sold or foreclosed upon by its lenders."

https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1383244

[eschaton]

May 18th Planning Commission agenda online. Only two items for next week, both of them very minor:

1. A new sign on a building in Pittsburgh Technology Center in South Oakland. A company called Lumen has bought CenturyLink over a year ago, and wants to change the name on the building to reflect the parent company.

2. The historic nomination of Mellon Bank in East Liberty as a protective move against demolition. This presentation is an odd stub, with only five pages of pictures included. I've seen more extensive documentation before the HRC, so I presume someone made an oopsie here and we'll eventually get something more detailed.

[Don't Be That Guy]

Originally Posted by eschaton

2. The historic nomination of Mellon Bank in East Liberty as a protective move against demolition. This presentation is an odd stub, with only five pages of pictures included. I've seen more extensive documentation before the HRC, so I presume someone made an oopsie here and we'll eventually get something more detailed.

Who knows? I watched the HRC meeting on this and it was an unprofessional mess.

[wpipkins2]

I wonder which retailer it will be?

https://www.post-gazette.com/busines...s/202105130171

[bmust71]

Originally Posted by wpipkins2

I wonder which retailer it will be?

https://www.post-gazette.com/busines...s/202105130171

My guess is a major fitness center operator (planet fitness, la fitness, etc)

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by bmust71

My guess is a major fitness center operator (planet fitness, la fitness, etc)

That would suck!

[eschaton]

June 3rd ZBA is online. A couple of interesting smaller projects coming up:

1. A new two-story office building on Baum Boulevard. This will replace an existing converted home which houses Howard Hannah's Shadyside offices - and seems as though it will continue to be a Howard Hannah office. I have mixed, but mostly negative feelings here. On the good side, a single-family home on Baum is out-of-context with an increasingly urban street. Even though the new building is actually smaller than the existing building, it would be less jarring in terms of typology (even though the design is a step down). The site orientation however is all wrong for an increasingly urban streetscape. They seem to very much want a parking loop, with an entrance off of the alley and an exit which loops around the front of the building, exiting at the corner of S. Aiken. This is actually the current driveway pattern as well, though the new design creates pull-in spaces hidden under a cantilever, increasing the paved area. The building in contrast has zero setback on S. Aiken and the alley behind (which is why it needs a variance). I don't understand why - when they are razing the building - they don't just build a new one with zero setback from Baum and have a parking lot off of the alley which is entirely obscured.

2. Another Baum project - this one 4808 Baum Boulevard. Once again, this replaces one of the rando converted houses left in the corridor. The project is a carwash, but it's being designed by Indovina, so at least it's a very nice looking carwash. It's also screened very well from the street. The continuing issues with uses in the Baum-Centre corridor though show me that the UNC zoning really needs to be updated. It's a weird mishmash which allows for both denser development than LNC along with autocentric uses like drive-thrus which aren't allowed in LNC zones.

3. Finally, the moribund project at the corner of Penn and Centre across from Target in East Liberty is being resurrected. To give a primer, when the parcel was sold, the new developer believed they could continue to use the zoning variance granted to the old developer. It went before the ZBA, and they said no, they had to reapply. It's still a six-story office building, and looks identical to the last time I saw it. I still don't like the glass curtain walls at the corner, but the overall massing is fine.

[pj3000]

^ funny how that works... I was just driving that stretch of Baum yesterday for the first time in a while, and I took note of the Orient Kitchen (its building which has been irreparably destroyed overthe years)... figuring it wasn't long for this world.

Good lookin' carwash! It will make a killing in that location. A decent place has been much needed in this area.

Re: the proposed Howard Hanna office... demolition of a century+ old house (in good shape) for what primarily amouts to expanded parking for a few more cars and a throwaway small office building should simply never be allowed. Build to a better use or no permit.

[shantyside]

Originally Posted by eschaton

3. Finally, the moribund project at the corner of Penn and Centre across from Target in East Liberty is being resurrected. To give a primer, when the parcel was sold, the new developer believed they could continue to use the zoning variance granted to the old developer. It went before the ZBA, and they said no, they had to reapply. It's still a six-story office building, and looks identical to the last time I saw it. I still don't like the glass curtain walls at the corner, but the overall massing is fine.

thanks for the update - an extremely mediocre design for a very prominent corner

why can't they build them like this anymore (beautiful liberty bank building on the non-prominent corner of the block)?

[shantyside]

for your weekend amusement:

Inside Architecture's Wildest Conspiracy Theory

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...spiracy-theory

"A dedicated group of YouTubers and Reddit posters see the Singer Building and countless other discarded pre-modern beauties and extant Beaux-Arts landmarks as artifacts of a globe-spanning civilization called the Tartarian Empire, which was somehow erased from the history books. Adherents of this theory believe these buildings to be the keys to a hidden past, clandestinely obscured by malevolent actors.

At its core, the theory reflects a fear of how quickly things change. As they look at today’s cityscapes, Tartaria believers see an eerie and alienating place, filled with abstract monoliths that emerged out of nowhere in a brief period of time. They’re skeptical of the rapid rise and development of the U.S., and even more suspicious of how quickly Modernism came to dominate the landscape. "

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by shantyside

thanks for the update - an extremely mediocre design for a very prominent corner

why can't they build them like this anymore (beautiful liberty bank building on the non-prominent corner of the block)?

My understanding is that there is no longer cheap, skilled masonry workers to do this type of work compared to the time period when these buildings flourished and the nation was awash in cheap immigrant labor.
I've always been curious though as to how true that is or if other factors are a bigger part of the equation. I would imagine dealing with heavy stone is tougher in general and contractors like to use modern, generic materials more because they are easier to work with and have become standardized.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

My understanding is that there is no longer cheap, skilled masonry workers to do this type of work compared to the time period when these buildings flourished and the nation was awash in cheap immigrant labor.
I've always been curious though as to how true that is or if other factors are a bigger part of the equation. I would imagine dealing with heavy stone is tougher in general and contractors like to use modern, generic materials more because they are easier to work with and have become standardized.

I am hopeful that over the next few decades the perfection of building-scale 3D printing will allow for the cheap manufacture of customized ornament, allowing for more of a return to the historic norm regarding building decoration.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

My understanding is that there is no longer cheap, skilled masonry workers to do this type of work compared to the time period when these buildings flourished and the nation was awash in cheap immigrant labor.
I've always been curious though as to how true that is or if other factors are a bigger part of the equation. I would imagine dealing with heavy stone is tougher in general and contractors like to use modern, generic materials more because they are easier to work with and have become standardized.

Labor and materials costs today vs. a hundre years ago is certainly an issue.

And I think much of it has to do with the fact that buildings in days gone by were constructed as formal representations of individuals/organizations/cities/etc., whereas that thinking was affected in the mid-century to view buildings more in terms of function, which led to the commoditization of buildings as simply 'real estate' to be built and sold at the highest profit margin possible... thus leading to most non-HQ type buildings to be rather derivative, generic, cheap designs.

[eschaton]

GNC is looking to move out of its downtown building (which has been planned since January) and into the next phase of 3 Crossings.

I'm looking forward to seeing what new ownership does with 300 Sixth Ave. The building is still handsome on the upper stories, but the bottom four were completely remuddled in the mid 20th century. Probably one of the ugliest remaining facades downtown.

A historic restoration is probably impossible, but anything is better than the current state.

[Bricktrimble]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

My understanding is that there is no longer cheap, skilled masonry workers to do this type of work compared to the time period when these buildings flourished and the nation was awash in cheap immigrant labor.
I've always been curious though as to how true that is or if other factors are a bigger part of the equation. I would imagine dealing with heavy stone is tougher in general and contractors like to use modern, generic materials more because they are easier to work with and have become standardized.

This goes back to the three-legged stool - cheap, good or fast - pick two. There are definitely still skilled masons out there - take a look at the restoration of the Union Trust building, the new(ish) CMU Tepper Quad, etc. In many cases, no one wants to pay for the quality. And everything is on the fast track. Remember you get what you pay for! Companies don't hold on to their buildings as in the past so the architecture doesn't matter as much as pj3000 said. Enough cliches for today...

[DKNewYork]

Originally Posted by eschaton

GNC is looking to move out of its downtown building (which has been planned since January) and into the next phase of 3 Crossings.

I'm looking forward to seeing what new ownership does with 300 Sixth Ave. The building is still handsome on the upper stories, but the bottom four were completely remuddled in the mid 20th century. Probably one of the ugliest remaining facades downtown.

A historic restoration is probably impossible, but anything is better than the current state.

Agreed that the remodeled lower floors look pretty bad. The terra cotta on the upper floors still looks to be in pretty good shape so I am puzzled what would have motivated the owners to replace the terra cotta on the lower floors with stone. It appears that the building might have originally had two entrances on Wood Street...maybe the renovation's purpose was to consolidate them into one entrance.

I will admit that I like the stained glass window (The Puddler) that was installed during the bad renovation. If the building facade were to be restored, I would hope this window could be disassembled and moved.

Maybe PNC will be tempted to purchase and beautifully restore the building as the next addition to its campus. It would probably have to be gutted. I've only been in the building a couple times to attend events at the old Pittsburgh Press Club on the top floor.

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

Agreed that the remodeled lower floors look pretty bad. The terra cotta on the upper floors still looks to be in pretty good shape so I am puzzled what would have motivated the owners to replace the terra cotta on the lower floors with stone. It appears that the building might have originally had two entrances on Wood Street...maybe the renovation's purpose was to consolidate them into one entrance.

I will admit that I like the stained glass window (The Puddler) that was installed during the bad renovation. If the building facade were to be restored, I would hope this window could be disassembled and moved.

Maybe PNC will be tempted to purchase and beautifully restore the building as the next addition to its campus. It would probably have to be gutted. I've only been in the building a couple times to attend events at the old Pittsburgh Press Club on the top floor.

The building once housed a retail arcade on the first floors. I vividly remember the high end men's retail in the building. Canadian Furs was located in the building for many years. I remember walking through the dark corridors with the interior window displays.

The building was most likely renovated at the same time as the now demolished Fifth & Wood and First National Bank buildings located at fifth and wood streets. The Fifth and Wood Street building was renovated before it was demolished in 1997. The FNB building was demolished to make way for 1 PNC in 1968. These appeared to be mid century modernization projects.

[AaronPGH]

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2021...ey-on-twitter/

It is a great day. Pittsburgh finally has its first black mayor.