I'm not a huge fan of something like a small-scale soccer stadium on such prime riverfront real estate, but it's a hell of a lot better than the current ampitheater. Sounds like something that could be very good for Station Square, it will certainly bring in some new people to the area!

As for transit out to the airport, I would be content with a legitimate express bus service. But the buses need to be the type with lots of storage space under the passenger compartment. Can't be a standard city bus, that would simply be insanity!

Aaron (Glowrock)

I think I can agree on both counts. Come to think of it, call me crazy but I think I'd be in favor of express bus service versus LRT. I remember; I was on Sound Transit's LRT out in Seattle and it was a hastle lugging large suitcases around. Plus, where it was located, it was a trek to get from the terminal facility to the other end of the parking garage to hop on the LRT line. There wasn't even a moving walkway or anything. And, the signage was rather poor. Of course, none of that has to do with the fact that the light rail cars had no baggage capacity...

Now about the stadium, I, too, have some mixed views. On one hand it is still something to bring people down to Station Square. However, as you also stated, it's on prime riverfront real estate. I guess it's still too risky to build low-to-midrise high density residential (4 to 8 stories) in spite of it being the best use of that land...

On average, about 11,000 people depart PIT daily. That's from the entire catchment area, of which downtown is only a tiny fraction. Then, of the tiny portion using the airport from downtown, you will still have people taking cabs, hotel shuttles, etc.

The amount of users using light rail from downtown to the airport would not nearly be enough for a dedicated express service. However, with more stops along the way, the line becomes more of a commuter line while at the same time taps more of the airport's catchment area. This I think would be feasible.

However, an airport line would ideally have been designed from the Station Square station out along the Ohio river then towards Robinson. That would have involved no river crossings. To use the NSC for an airport line would need another river crossing. Better to use that line for the I-279/Rt. 19 corridor.

They already announced the naming rights belong to Highmark.

I think that this is a puzzling use of prime riverfront real estate. Sure, it's better than a parking lot "amphitheater", but I don't see how a field and bleachers for a minor league soccer team and women's football team makes for a good use of the land -- especially when there is the newly-renovated South Stadium just blocks away, which seats probably 3x as many as this proposed venue. Weird.

City approves plan for new PNC tower
 

City approves plan for new PNC tower
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
By Mark Belko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The city planning commission cleared the way Tuesday for construction of Downtown's newest skyscraper.

Members voted unanimously to approve plans for the Tower at PNC Plaza, the 33-story glass office building that will serve as the headquarters for PNC Financial Services Group.

"It's a welcome addition to our skyline," said Page Thomas, a planning commission member, before casting his vote.

PNC is billing the $400 million complex, to be built on Wood Street between Forbes and Fifth avenues, as the "greenest skyrise in the world," one that will exceed the top standards for sustainable design.

Gary Saulson, PNC's director of corporate real estate, told planning commission members that the solar chimney to be built into the skyscraper will be the first in new construction in North America.

The chimney will work in conjunction with a diamond-shaped solar heat collector at the very top of the tower that will absorb sunlight and help draw air through the structure. Facilitating the exchange will be "pop out" windows that will open to allow air into the building to keep it cool.

In order to back up its green claims, PNC plans to publish employee evaluations of the office tower as well as the operating costs and energy results relating to the building's performance, Mr. Saulson said.

The goal, he noted, "is to prove that we did what we said we would do."

"The building is very transparent, and we want the process to be very transparent," he said.

PNC plans to begin deconstruction of existing buildings on the east side of Wood and parts of Forbes and Fifth by March. The new building should be rising from the ground in 15 months. Completion is scheduled for June 1, 2015.

The new headquarters will feature more than 800,000 square feet of space and house some 3,000 employees. There will be three levels of underground parking for 136 vehicles and as many as 195 bicycles.

PNC also plans to create five six-story "neighborhoods" within the building to make it feel more like a campus and to help spur interaction among employees. There also will be two patios, one directly off an auditorium in the lobby and another -- filled with plants, flowers and other vegetation -- directly above it.

Also Tuesday, commission members were briefed on plans to restore facades at 254 and 256 Fifth and 445 Wood directly across from the new skyscraper.

All three buildings will get new windows and new storefronts. A canopy will be restored to the Wood building, now home to Kashi Jewelers. The owner eventually hopes to use the upper floors of the buildings for 24 to 30 apartment units.

Another building, at 435 Market St., also will get a new storefront and awning and other improvements. The work is part of a new program to help Downtown property owners make improvements to facades and upper floors.
Mark Belko: mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.
First published on January 11, 2012 at 12:00 am

Read more: http://www.postgazette.com/pg/12011/...#ixzz1j9opLIgH

Is there a city that likes to waste as much prime river front real estate as Pittsburgh. Seriously, it's a game on how to waste space the most and in the worst way.

^ We feel your pain up here in Cleveland...

Of course it is a somewhat challenging location given the narrowing gap between Carson and the riverfront railway. That said, I don't see a $7 million stadium necessarily being the final long-term use of that parcel--if and when that parcel is actually needed for higher-value development, that wouldn't be much of a sunk cost to write off.

Given that analysis, this seem like a positive, albeit perhaps temporary, step forward. I certainly think it will improve the aesthetics from the riverfront trail, Downtown, Point Park, and the North Shore, and it may also be a useful and complementary venue within the overall complex of venues around the Point.

I cant find a rendering

"The Pittsburgh Riverhounds of USL PRO announced today the construction of a $7.5 million stadium to serve as a home field for the franchise. The stadium will be constructed in Station Square, Pittsburgh’s preeminent mixed-use entertainment complex, with a completion date set for summer 2012. The stadium will operate year-round and host games and tournaments in soccer, football, lacrosse, rugby, and softball for youth, high school, college and pro teams, but will only have permanent field markings for soccer. It will also maintain the location as an outdoor venue for concerts and community events to replace an outdoor amphitheater that has operated on the site for years. The stadium will seat approximately 3,500 individuals on the south and east sides of the field. The north side of the field will remain open to the bike trail running parallel to the river as well as the City, which will create a breathtaking backdrop for the main event."

http://uslpro.uslsoccer.com/home/589757.html

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ndsstadium.png
www.riverhounds.com

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...umentrance.png
wtae.com

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...tadiumview.png
wtae.com

By the way, here's a pretty cool new house being built on Mount Washington. It's UC but it's already on the market for sale in the multilist. $850,000

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ffstmtwash.jpg
details: http://wpn.mlxchange.com/DotNet/Pub/...76&s=WPN&t=WPN

Here's Otto Milk Condos coming along. Before and after shots.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...hotodotcom.jpg
flikr user: preservationphoto.com

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...-perfessor.jpg
flikr user: perfessor

Here's some good shots of the Gates Center for Computer Science in Oakland after completion.
All photos by: Timothy Hursley

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...atescenter.png


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...centerrear.png


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ushbridge2.png


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...aushbridge.png


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...teriorview.png

Where is the Otto's Milk Factory? Is that in the vecinity of Lawrenceville? That's rather BOSS-looking.:rock:

The Strip, 2400 block of Smallman.

Any idea when that was taken? I walk by there 4 days a week (including 3 hours ago) and haven't noticed it looking that good. :haha:

Well, it's halfway between downtown & lawrenceville pretty much.

Really? I thought that was a photo. Must be more of a rendering! It was supposed to be completed in 2009 originally. I don't get to the strip district very often to verify.

Well, it's definitely a photo, but I think it's been at least touched up some. There is a white BMW X3 in the parking lot in the background (right under the US Steel Building) that dates the source pic to 2011. (A guy I work with just bought it last year.)

I took this 12/28/2011.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7174/6...80a95399_b.jpg


If I remember I'll get a picture tomorrow from the angle that the "rendering" or whatever is from. They were working on it last year and they haven't touched in a while so maybe it is done and I'm just not very observant. :D

^Yeah, get a similar angle picture. That would be great.
I'm thinking they touched up the street level of the photo to make it look cleaner.

I'm thinking you could get a lot of that look just playing with the color.

Yeah, I'm not following the argument that since this isn't a high value use of the land so it shouldn't get built at all. Sounds like some sort of reverse NIMBYism to me.

Maybe if this was one of the last few available riverfront parcels in the area I could see it being an issue, but it's not. There is literally over a mile of poorly underutilized riverfront from the Station Square garage all the way down to the West End bridge. Anything that gets built in this area will automatically be an improvement to what was there before, especially if it draws people in from the rest of the city.

There is still plenty of room for higher density development next to the field, so why leave the area in crap condition while waiting for it to magically materialize? If you think about it, this field could be a catalyst for bringing high value development to this area.

it's not reserve NIMBYism.

There are countless places to put a field like that. There is NO reason to put it there.

Conversely, that is prime land for centralized, smart urban, housing, or office space.. or both.

I don't think the Riverhounds stadium is the worst idea in the world. While a centrally located riverfront, that is a somewhat awkwardly narrow site for development. And given the tight financing environment, our collective dream of Station Square condo towers may never materialize.


There are plenty of reasons to place it there... especially when you think about it from the perspective of the Riverhounds.

1. Station Square is an entertainment complex. PNC Park and Heinz Field are just across the river... so this fits in with a riverfront "stadium district".

2. While there are "countless places" to put a field... few places insert the anonymous Riverhounds into the collective consciousness of Pittsburgh like a highly-visible riverfront stadium next to Downtown and the confluence. The rivers, downtown skyline and Station Square amenities will be instrumental in driving attendance in what is to date an untested soccer market. This will be huge for the growth of the Riverhounds franchise... and 3,500 seats is probably too conservative.

3. It's another pleasant diversion destination for Pittsburghers... adding to quality of life and riverfront revitalization... and should contribute to businesses in Station Square and elsewhere in the vicinity.

4. It's a dramatic improvement over what is there now. Who knows how long we'd have to wait for the macroeconomic climate to get back to normal?

"There is NO reason to put it there."

If the soccer team owns the land and wants to build a soccer stadium with their money, then that seems reason enough to me.

Actually, there are a lot of good reasons to put it there and Evergrey mentioned some of them. The only reason against putting it there so far is based off of the misguided notion that if this stadium gets built, there will suddenly no longer be any space for high density development in Station Square.

If developers do eventually decide they want to build a high density condo district in Station Square, there will still be a ton of empty space available to build it on. The best parcel for it would not even be in the vicinity of the field, but on the parking lots across the street from the T station.

Today:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7174/6...9bd489aa_b.jpg

I'm starting to think the difference is really just that the weather is only that nice like 4 days out of the year. :haha:

Lot 24 update, taken 1/12/2012: Still digging.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7007/6...e74f6418_b.jpg

The ubiquitous Pittsburgh overhead utilities were removed from perfesser's photo.

nice pic tbone! that looks better than the other one I think.

Let's apply that elsewhere...

"If the city and casino want to build a giant ugly ass parking lot on the N Shore without any attempt to make it less ugly, well that's there call and because it's their call... well it's reason enough for me."

TBone thanks for the pic. I'm a sucker for construction pics in general. Hopefully you can keep up this pace for the duration of the project :) I don't think this project justifies a thread in the highrise section but maybe we could get away with it in the general developments thread.

Just a different angle with nicer lighting.

Again, while I don't necessarily disagree that the casino parking garage should have somehow been made a bit more attractive, I think it's a mistake to claim that it hasn't done anything for the North Shore. Thousands (probably tens of thousands) of people per day go to Rivers Casino, and the amount of revenue that place brings in is absolutely enormous. It's got pretty decent access to the riverfront trail system, it's a stone's throw from Heinz Field, and it adds quite nicely to the overall entertainment venue aspect of the entire area.

Not to mention, the place employees in the range of several thousand people, nothing to sneeze at!

Aaron (Glowrock)

"If the city and casino want to build a giant ugly ass parking lot on the N Shore without any attempt to make it less ugly, well that's there call and because it's their call... well it's reason enough for me."

There were many reviews of the casino design and its parking garage. Next time something is up for review be sure you voice your opinion to decisionmakers.

My guess is that most projects only get zoning related reviews-not esthetic reviews.

Many people voiced their views. But again, I was applying the logic used for the soccer field to the casino.

http://postgazette.com/pg/12013/1203305-100.stm


Read more: http://postgazette.com/pg/12013/1203...#ixzz1jMUGcDAW

One story office buildings... really? :yuck:

I guess for me taking the Riverhounds parcel from a surface parking lot to any sort of eye-pleasing and cool use--and it will be a regional amenity, even if it obviously isn't the most important regional amenity around the Point--is worth the risk that far down the road, we will have run out of prime riverfront space and may have to make a decision about whether or not to redevelop that parcel for a higher-intensity use.

I might feel differently if they were pulling down a nice historic building, or sinking a lot more costs into the structure (which would make it harder to write off the sunk costs in 15-20 years). But they aren't, so I view this as a clear positive.

And although I don't think we need to give land owners carte blanche, I do think it is nice this is apparently all private money we are talking about.

Edit: Oh, and of COURSE it is a great place for a stadium from their perspective. They are the frickin' Riverhounds after all, and they now get to claim they are in a sports cluster with NFL and MLB stadiums, plus an NHL arena, and they get an amazing view, and they are right next to Station Square, which means they are right next to all sorts of established retail and entertainment, a hotel, and even a T stop . . . I totally understand the notion that stadiums are not necessarily the best use of prime urban land, but I don't think you can reverse that logic and say this is not a special location from the Riverhounds' perspective.

I don't see anything wrong with the Riverhound's building their stadium there. Its a better use than what has been there for the last fifty years.

The reality is there is a lot of riverfront land available and no demand to build on it (see North Shore, Station Square, Lawrenceville, Hazelwood...). If it made sense for Forest City to build on that site they already would have. Lets just hope that they move forward with the other end of Station Square. The mid-rise residential proposal looked pretty good.

That is my take as well. One story office buildings containing class A office space? What do they expect to accomplish with single story buildings? Two to three-story buildings would be just fine here IMO. I really don't get why this whole region consistantly builds far less than what demand calls for. They call the greater Pittsburgh region as a high risk development market. Since when is Pittsburgh more like Las Vegas or Miami?

I have a new take on the Riverhounds stadium. Suppose they were to enclose it at some point with a glass wall facing the river and a green roof offering a rooftop park? I suppose there could still be room to have at least one or two other buildings there either for residential or office use...

This from today's Post-Gazette website:

The article mentioned one-to-three story buildings. IMO, that's more like it. Plus, it referenced that these buildings will have "stylish" architectural design. I'd like to see some renderings of what they want to build...

Most of them are probably going to be one story "flex" type buildings. Chaska has had a lot of success with those in Cranberry. It is easier to lease a building that can serve as either office or warehouse/R&D. There isn't enough demand for standard office space on the Parkway West.

Fair point; there's not enough demand along the Parkway West for more traditional office development. I do wonder what the ethelene plant would do to demand if Shell decides on the Aliquippa location on which to build it...

That's a really good question. I'm sure there would be a number of companies that would want to be near that plant. I would think Marcellus related companies are Chaska's primary target - they are leasing space right and left. That one story type building is ideal for their use.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12018/1204140-53.stm

It's good to see this eyesore will finally get completed.

The never-ending Pittsburgh transit-dismantling continues... and in this era of austerity and Corbettism... pleas for state aid are especially useless.

http://postgazette.com/pg/12018/1204207-454.stm

Read more: http://postgazette.com/pg/12018/1204...#ixzz1jqbc068T

^ But I'm told that Pittsburgh is such a hip, "in", vibrant, hi-tech, cool, urban place now...

As these types of negative indicators continue to be around and continue to get worse, I'll choose to remain immune to the hype.

Finally!! I can't wait to see what the finished product is going to look like...