PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[Austinlee]

Nice pics Photolith. You need to post the first couple in the PNC Plaza dev thread.

EDIT: You too BrianTH. Chop chop.

[AaronPGH]

You know our resurgence is officially a "thing" when Clickhole (run by The Onion) does a parody of all of our good press.

Is Pittsburgh The New Austin? The Austin We Hoped And Dreamed Of, The Austin That Was Foretold?
http://www.clickhole.com/article/pit...ource=facebook

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

You know our resurgence is officially a "thing" when Clickhole (run by The Onion) does a parody of all of our good press.

Is Pittsburgh The New Austin? The Austin We Hoped And Dreamed Of, The Austin That Was Foretold?
http://www.clickhole.com/article/pit...ource=facebook

Interesting article in the NYT today about where Educated Millennials are choosing to live. No surprise they are choosing urban cores over suburbs at record numbers. Pittsburgh is mentioned several times at being at the leading edge of this trend.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/up...abt=0002&abg=0

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

You know our resurgence is officially a "thing" when Clickhole (run by The Onion) does a parody of all of our good press.

The window of time between "Pittsburgh, not as crappy as you think!" and "Enough about Pittsburgh already!" (i.e., the time when the coverage was purely positive without additional negative framing) has apparently closed.

[SkyPittsburgh]

A small victory was won at the Zoning Board Today...http://www.pghcitypaper.com/Blogh/ar...-babyland-site

Zoning Board rejects arts corridor AutoZone proposal on former Babyland site

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by SkyPittsburgh

A small victory was won at the Zoning Board Today...http://www.pghcitypaper.com/Blogh/ar...-babyland-site

Nice!

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by SkyPittsburgh

A small victory was won at the Zoning Board Today.

Congrats to the people who opposed it!

[BrianTH]

The Colcom Foundation is donating $350,000 to PDP's Paris to Pittsburgh facade renovation program:

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/6...#axzz3Gm2Qgwx2

That program has done a lot of good work throughout Downtown.

Meanwhile the Standard Life building is going to a (non-distressed) auction:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburg...own-to-be.html

A good price should help encourage more apartment development Downtown.

[Evergrey]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/tr...ittsburgh.html

Former Churches Blessed With New Lives in Pittsburgh

OCT. 21, 2014


The Church Brew Works, a brewpub within the restored St. John the Baptist Church.
Credit Jeff Swensen for The New York Times

...

A look at Pittsburgh’s many reused churches, in fact, remains a unique way of exploring the city. A chapel tour of the area, for instance, could include a singalong session at Charlie Murdoch’s Dueling Piano Bar (inside a century-old Presbyterian church built for Ukrainian immigrants), a pottery class at the Union Project (a community education center in the former Union Baptist Church) or even a visit to the Sphinx Cafe, a hookah bar in a rundown former church of unknown provenance in the city’s university district.

Even those tourists who fall in love with Pittsburgh and decide to stay (it happens!) are well served by the city’s adaptively reused churches. In the South Side Slopes neighborhood, the former St. Michael the Archangel church is now known as Angel’s Arms Condominiums, where lofts and condos start at about $300,000.

Hotels, too, have gotten in on the act. The Priory Hotel (thepriory.com), its 42 rooms within the former St. Mary’s Priory, was built in 1888 for Benedictine monks. The family-owned boutique hotel is home to the pint-size Monks’ Bar, known as the smallest pub in Pennsylvania, and the aptly named Grand Hall, a sumptuous event space featuring restored Austrian stained glass windows. In 2011, an ad agency executive and his wife, Edward and Mary Ann Graf, also historic preservation hobbyists, spent $2.7 million upgrading the property, adding 17 guest rooms.

Among former churches that have become entertainment spaces is a labyrinthine concert hall known as Mr. Smalls (mrsmalls.com), formerly the 18th-century St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Millvale. Nationally touring rappers and indie rock acts including Earl Sweatshirt and Jello Biafra perform from a stage where the St. Ann’s altar once stood, and a recent renovation has added a maze of outdoor balconies and D.J. club rooms. The owners recently acquired a second disused church, United Methodist, which sits across the street. They plan to transform it into the Creative Life Support Center, a recording studio, cafe and musical instrument store.

...

[Austinlee]

^Awesome. I love any NYT article about Pittsburgh. They are always so fascinating.

[photoLith]

I find it very dumb when people complain about churches being turned into condos or bars. So what? You would rather have the church become abandoned and fall apart and then get torn down? I'm glad they are reusing these beautiful buildings.

[Topher51]

Originally Posted by photoLith

I find it very dumb when people complain about churches being turned into condos or bars. So what? You would rather have the church become abandoned and fall apart and then get torn down? I'm glad they are reusing these beautiful buildings.

I took an out of town buddy to Church Brew Works last year and he expressed the same sentiment.

"It feels a little wrong."

"Well, it could be a parking lot. Instead, it is a beautiful building that serves an excellent dunkel."

"Excellent point. Cheers!"

[Minivan Werner]

I kind of felt that way when I first went to Church Brew Works. Like, I didn't have a problem with it but I knew others might and I felt a little offended by proxy. But then I realized how silly that was.

Like Topher said, if people don't like it they should put out their own money to let it remain a church, or not complain when they tear it down.

[BrianTH]

If the original religious entity is willing to desanctify it and sell it off for secular purposes, that is good enough for me.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

If the original religious entity is willing to desanctify it and sell it off for secular purposes, that is good enough for me.

Desanctify - Excellent name for a new nightclub in a church.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Desanctify - Excellent name for a new nightclub in a church.

I guess I didn't know/I guess I didn't know/I guess I didn't know/Desanctify!

[Wiz Khalifa]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

If the original religious entity is willing to desanctify it and sell it off for secular purposes, that is good enough for me.

I don't even care if they do that, since religion is a joke to me that is responsible for more wars and murders and ignorance than any other entity on the planet (besides government).

I'm very glad that they were able to preserve all of the unique architecture of these churches though.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Wiz Khalifa

I don't even care if they do that, since religion is a joke to me that is responsible for more wars and murders and ignorance than any other entity on the planet (besides government).

I'm very glad that they were able to preserve all of the unique architecture of these churches though.

I guess I had in mind scenarios where it is basically a government taking a religious building away from the religious entity without its consent (including cases where the religious community in question is exterminated or forcibly displaced from that locality), in which case there is one entity of each type you listed on the two sides of the transfer. That seems bad to me, and in certain parts of the world (not usually the U.S.) that is not an uncommon back story to formerly religious buildings.

But if say a religious building is voluntarily abandoned without being formally desanctified (for financial reasons, or the natural die out of a religious community, or so on), then I don't care about that building later being re-used for secular purposes without official permission.

However, I would hope even people who feel differently about those cases would be fine with cases in which a formal desanctification has occurred.

[photoLith]

The only good thing religion has done is build beautiful buildings, other than that its a pretty disgusting blight on the human species. I hope that all churches one day lose their patronage and get turned into museums, bars, apartments, art galleries, etc. I do hate seeing beautiful churches being torn down.

[Jonboy1983]

Nice read. Churches always amazed me. When I was younger, I used to want to have my parents drive past/in front of churches. If I saw a tall steeple, I'd say, "dad, there's a steeple over there! Drive by it!"

They sure don't build buildings like they used to. I also like to hear church bells, too. No, not a recording blaring from a fake 30-pound fiberglass clapper-less bell, but the actual, heavy, one-ton-plus cast iron ones...