PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

A lot of people were involved, but I agree he deserves credit for his part in promoting much better public use of the riverfronts.

No, this was pretty bad.

PNC Park may be the nicest baseball park in MLB, but collectively the stadiums are still a huge waste of precious land AND they were a huge waste of public funds AND the whole nest of deals involved are still having bad effects (more on that below).

Marginal, but OK.

Actually pretty bad as it was implemented under Murphy. Way too much retail, and the limitation on residential was terrible. It is only now starting to reach its real potential.

I'm not sure how much credit Murphy can get for recent stuff, but I agree he did some stuff to help at the beginning.

Now for some stuff you omitted from your list.

The destruction of the Mellon Bank Branch interior for a failed Lord & Taylor, and in general the waste of public money in failed attempts to subsidize Downtown department stores. Just terrible.

The stadiums are just one part of the overall clusterfudge that happened on the North Shore. For example, Murphy was part of re-routing the northern section of what used to be the Spine Line to go along the river rather than into the heart of the North Side where people actually live, and that was done to serve the interests of the North Shore players that Murphy was supporting.

Meanwhile the stadium deals included the development deal for the land between the stadiums, and that has been a huge disappointment--way too slow, not nearly dense enough, favoring the priorities of the Steelers over the priorities of the City, reserving way too much land for parking, now grossly underutilizing the NSC . . . really, really terrible.

Then there is The Waterfront. Another blown opportunity led by Continental (the same people screwing up the North Shore). I've seen people here argue it reflected the thinking of the time, but if so we would have been better off waiting, and that is exactly the point we are discussing--Murphy wasn't ahead of his time if terrible plans like the Waterfront met with his approval.

So I absolutely stand by my statement. I agree his vision for the public spaces along the rivers was pretty good. But otherwise, his sense of what urban redevelopment should look like was pretty darn terrible.

Sure, a lot of people were in a financial-backing and political sense, but Murphy was THE guy who founded Riverlife to implement his vision for the riverfronts. That fact should not be lessened.

As for the stadiums, where would you have had them built other than the North Shore that would provide the same benefit to Pittsburgh? And where realistically could they have been possibly be built anyway (without plowing down acres of neighborhood or locating them out in the suburbs)? I have a hard time seeing how they are a "huge waste of precious land". And to the public funding for them... same situation in just about any city.

For the SSW, there is no arguing the overall positive economic impact and overall revitalization of the neighborhood it has had on the eastern end of the southside, and that continues to improve. To suppose that its short and long-range potential wasn't considered when Murphy worked to purchase the land is misguided.

And the same is true with East Liberty, Murphy knew Home Depot was a seed. He got the chain to take over where a closed neighborhood staple existed, and it brought people from all over the East End to it. Success there led to him directly working with Steve Mosites to build Eastside with Whole Foods as its anchor. We continue to see the long-range results of those efforts from over a decade ago.

As for the Waterfront, the call on approval of the Waterfront's layout was not Murphy's, and he even publicly came out against the layout, specifically because he felt it was at odds with riverfront park plans.

There's no doubt that Murphy had missteps or failures when it came to development, but there is also no denying his successes on big projects, and how he worked to seed markets that simply did not exist prior. He knew his projects would spur private investment, and they certainly have. It's quite apparent in hindsight that most of the major revitalization/development areas in Pittsburgh currently, have Murphy's earlier work written all over them -- North Shore, East Liberty, Southside, Penn Avenue/Cultural District, riverfront trails/parkland...

So to say that Murphy's vision of urban redevelopment was "pretty darn terrible" is to basically say that developments going on in Pittsburgh currently also must be pretty darn terrible, because it is undeniable that the efforts during his administration seeded what we are getting now.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

That fact should not be lessened.

Fair enough.

As for the stadiums, where would you have had them built other than the North Shore that would provide the same benefit to Pittsburgh?

One option would be nowhere. Certainly the public should never have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on them.

Assuming they did get built, they should probably be out in the suburbs somewhere, wherever land didn't have so much locational value. That, of course, is the fundamental problem with talking about the "benefit to Pittsburgh" without considering the costs. Specifically, weighed against that benefit should not only be the massive drain on limited public finances, but also the very large opportunity cost of using all that prime land in such an inefficient way.

I have a hard time seeing how they are a "huge waste of precious land".

Things like office towers and apartment buildings and hotels and such are not so glamorous and therefore can't always compete for the affections of politicians and ill-informed sports fans in the same way as sports stadiums, but the fact is the daily, consistent value they provide ultimately adds up to a lot more benefit than what sports stadiums can provide per unit of land used. Meanwhile there has been much written on the disappointing economic effects of stadiums--the numbers simply do not add up in their favor.

And to the public funding for them... same situation in just about any city.

Just because all your friends are heroin addicts doesn't mean you should become one too.

By the way, it was possible to say no to sports teams asking the public to build them stadiums, even back then. The Rams are in St. Louis and not LA because LA said no.

To suppose that its short and long-range potential wasn't considered when Murphy worked to purchase the land is misguided.

He is the one who agreed to the residential limitation. That was stupid and short-sighted, greatly undermined the development in the early years and likely contributed to a lot of the retail failures, and goes exactly to his flawed vision. Trying to give him the benefit of what happened when he was long gone and the residential limitation he approved was finally lifted (thanks to a publicly-funded buyout) makes zero sense:

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/...h-side-698339/

Heck, not even Murphy himself is trying to defend the decision in that way:

While the 2002 deal has come under attack in the years since, Mr. Murphy and former URA executive director Mulugetta Birru have defended it, saying that at the time no one knew what the market for apartments would be in that area.

That "who could have known?" sort of defense is the other side of the coin of what we have been saying here: rather than being ahead of his time, Murphy was precisely of his time, and unfortunately at that time people like Murphy did not realize that Pittsburgh was about to step out of the past and start becoming a modern city.

And the same is true with East Liberty. . . . We continue to see the long-range results of those efforts from over a decade ago.

Again, I'll give him credit for attracting some early investment to East Liberty, but that doesn't really go to what sort of urban planning he tended to endorse.

As for the Waterfront, the call on approval of the Waterfront's layout was not Murphy's and he even publicly came out against the layout, specifically because he felt it was at odds with riverfront park plans.

My recollection is that Murphy supported the sale to Continental and supported the plan in general, although I do recall he might have complained specifically about the riverfront portion. However, that is far from the only problem with The Waterfront's layout. Still, if you have citations to him criticizing other aspects of the plan then I would be happy to reconsider on this point.

There's no doubt that Murphy had missteps or failures when it came to development, but there is also no denying his successes on big projects, and how he worked to seed markets that simply did not exist prior.

Right, he was good at getting money invested in various big projects (much of it public money, of course), but mostly not good about understanding how such money should be put to work.

By the way, who knows what sort of markets could have been "seeded" if the many hundreds of millions he blew on bad or inefficient projects had been spent in other ways? Again, you have to think in terms of opportunity costs, and there would very likely have been much more stimulative things that could have been done with the stadium money, the department store money, and so on.

He knew his projects would spur private investment, and they certainly have.

Again, I think that is a mixed bag at most. Downtown, the North Shore, and the North Side in particular may well have seen a lot more private investment by now if not for the nature of Murphy's projects. A person with a better vision could also have seen a much sooner boom in private investment in and around the SSW. And aside from tearing down the projects, it is hard to know exactly what was required for East Liberty to get where it is now, since it enjoys so many fundamental advantages.

It's quite apparent in hindsight that most of the major revitalization/development areas in Pittsburgh currently, have Murphy's earlier work written all over them -- North Shore, East Liberty, Southside, Penn Avenue/Cultural District, riverfront trails/parkland...

We've dealt with all those issues except the Penn Avenue/Cultural District in detail (and I am not sure why you are crediting that to him), so I will try not to repeat myself.

The basic problem with trying to give Murphy credit for all the good things that have happened in recent years is that fundamental economic factors have been turning in Pittsburgh's favor over the last 10 years or so. So lots of good things were going to happen, and the question is whether Murphy's planning instincts in particular were more often helpful or harmful when it came to shaping future developments. And while I'm not saying he was always harmful, he certainly was in more cases than you are willing to admit, and in fact in many cases recent developments have basically taken the form of undoing bad things that results from Murphy's poor decisions (like PNC taking on trying to restore as much as possible of the Mellon Bank Branch that Murphy used public money to gut for no ultimate purpose whatsoever).

because it is undeniable that the efforts during his administration seeded what we are getting now.

Not only is it deniable but I am denying it. In fact, this is precisely a throwback to that 1990s attitude that nice things wouldn't happen to Pittsburgh unless dramatic, destructive gestures were made. What Murphy and you both fail to understand is that investment and redevelopment was going to come back to Pittsburgh because fundamental economic factors were turning in its favor.

So, a truly forward-looking mayor at the time would have been looking at how to make the best use of the money and assets the City had to offer, given this changing dynamic in Pittsburgh's favor. Instead, as a product of the time with often poor urban planning instincts, Murphy in desperation to get a lot of big projects moving wasted a lot of public money and endorsed a lot of bad plans.

In short, a lot of the good things that have happened recently have happened despite, not because of, things Murphy did. And in some areas, including the North Shore, there are a lot of good things that might have happened but have not in part because of Murphy's mistakes, and we'll never know what else could have been done with all the public money he blew.

[BrianTH]

Incidentally, to bring this full-circle:

As I pointed out originally, the Courtyard-Shadyside was a Murphy Era project so it isn't surprising it got approved with such a crappy anti-urban layout.

But-but-but, I can hear someone saying, doesn't Murphy deserve credit for bringing a new hotel to the Baum-Centre corridor, and in turn doesn't that mean he deserves credit for all the other investments in that area happening now?

Which, of course, is essentially nonsense. The growth of the nearby hospital and university complexes, plus the value of the Busway and general upward trend of the core of the East End, is what has created demand for more hotel rooms, housing, and so on in that specific area. And so even if, hypothetically, this particular hotel development would not have happened if Murphy had insisted on a decent layout, there is really no reasonable doubt that someone else would have sooner or later, and probably a lot sooner than later, agreed to build a new hotel in that area with an appropriate layout. And that is because it was fundamental economic forces, and not Murphy's willingness to sell out basic urban planning principles, that explain all of the recent interest in developing that area.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Wilkinsburg is getting $3M for downtown renewal projects through a state tax credit program:

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/...l-plan-700530/



Reusing the train station is hugely important--it is a great old structure with a nice plot of land, and it has the potential to serve as a key gateway to downtown Wilkinsburg given its Busway location and reopening the pedestrian tunnel:



It will be very sad to see the Penn-Lincoln Hotel get torn down, but they have studied it very thoroughly and tried to market it, and I can accept it simply cannot be reused at this point. Hopefully they replace it with something decent (it sounds like the PHLF, or perhaps their for-profit company Landmarks, may be the developer, and they do good work usually). Here is a fair writeup and some pictures of more-or-less current conditions:

http://www.joshuadavidmooney.com/?p=708

I'm intrigued by the references to the 1001 block of Wood and 800 block of Penn. The 1001 block of Wood has tons of potential, is on some bus routes, and is pretty close to the Busway station. 74 units of housing and 15 units of commercial is a lot, so I am hoping they may be looking at renovating all of the buildings along that block except for the PNC Bank (which I believe does not need renovating).

Looking from the south:



And the north:



Finally, the south side of the 800 block of Penn has a great collection of historic commercial buildings:



However, the north side is mostly a mess and probably needs a massive teardown so it can be rebuilt:



I can't tell from the description what they intend to do, and this $3 million is being stretched pretty thin at this point. But in an ideal world both sides would be addressed, and they keep talking about businesses wanting to get involved, so maybe private funding can make up the rest.

And if the 800 block got redone well, and the Penn-Lincoln was replaced with a decent-sized new building that was modern and attractive, that would completely change the feel of driving into downtown Wilkinsburg along Penn Avenue.

So in short, it is an ambitious list of projects, but very strategic and I think the potential is there for some great stuff.

Wilkinsburg has such great bones! It's gonna be the new east liberty in terms of popularity and redevelopment money.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Wilkinsburg has such great bones! It's gonna be the new east liberty in terms of popularity and redevelopment money.

That's definitely the hope, and the CDC keeps saying there are businesses itching to get started.

Incidentally, I am really hoping a large percentage of the historic structures in the core downtown can be saved. If so, Wilkinsburg could end up particularly charming.

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Fair enough.



One option would be nowhere. Certainly the public should never have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on them.

Assuming they did get built, they should probably be out in the suburbs somewhere, wherever land didn't have so much locational value. That, of course, is the fundamental problem with talking about the "benefit to Pittsburgh" without considering the costs. Specifically, weighed against that benefit should not only be the massive drain on limited public finances, but also the very large opportunity cost of using all that prime land in such an inefficient way.



Things like office towers and apartment buildings and hotels and such are not so glamorous and therefore can't always compete for the affections of politicians and ill-informed sports fans in the same way as sports stadiums, but the fact is the daily, consistent value they provide ultimately adds up to a lot more benefit than what sports stadiums can provide per unit of land used. Meanwhile there has been much written on the disappointing economic effects of stadiums--the numbers simply do not add up in their favor.



Just because all your friends are heroin addicts doesn't mean you should become one too.

By the way, it was possible to say no to sports teams asking the public to build them stadiums, even back then. The Rams are in St. Louis and not LA because LA said no.



He is the one who agreed to the residential limitation. That was stupid and short-sighted, greatly undermined the development in the early years and likely contributed to a lot of the retail failures, and goes exactly to his flawed vision. Trying to give him the benefit of what happened when he was long gone and the residential limitation he approved was finally lifted (thanks to a publicly-funded buyout) makes zero sense:

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/...h-side-698339/

Heck, not even Murphy himself is trying to defend the decision in that way:



That "who could have known?" sort of defense is the other side of the coin of what we have been saying here: rather than being ahead of his time, Murphy was precisely of his time, and unfortunately at that time people like Murphy did not realize that Pittsburgh was about to step out of the past and start becoming a modern city.



Again, I'll give him credit for attracting some early investment to East Liberty, but that doesn't really go to what sort of urban planning he tended to endorse.



My recollection is that Murphy supported the sale to Continental and supported the plan in general, although I do recall he might have complained specifically about the riverfront portion. However, that is far from the only problem with The Waterfront's layout. Still, if you have citations to him criticizing other aspects of the plan then I would be happy to reconsider on this point.



Right, he was good at getting money invested in various big projects (much of it public money, of course), but mostly not good about understanding how such money should be put to work.

By the way, who knows what sort of markets could have been "seeded" if the many hundreds of millions he blew on bad or inefficient projects had been spent in other ways? Again, you have to think in terms of opportunity costs, and there would very likely have been much more stimulative things that could have been done with the stadium money, the department store money, and so on.



Again, I think that is a mixed bag at most. Downtown, the North Shore, and the North Side in particular may well have seen a lot more private investment by now if not for the nature of Murphy's projects. A person with a better vision could also have seen a much sooner boom in private investment in and around the SSW. And aside from tearing down the projects, it is hard to know exactly what was required for East Liberty to get where it is now, since it enjoys so many fundamental advantages.



We've dealt with all those issues except the Penn Avenue/Cultural District in detail (and I am not sure why you are crediting that to him), so I will try not to repeat myself.

The basic problem with trying to give Murphy credit for all the good things that have happened in recent years is that fundamental economic factors have been turning in Pittsburgh's favor over the last 10 years or so. So lots of good things were going to happen, and the question is whether Murphy's planning instincts in particular were more often helpful or harmful when it came to shaping future developments. And while I'm not saying he was always harmful, he certainly was in more cases than you are willing to admit, and in fact in many cases recent developments have basically taken the form of undoing bad things that results from Murphy's poor decisions (like PNC taking on trying to restore as much as possible of the Mellon Bank Branch that Murphy used public money to gut for no ultimate purpose whatsoever).



Not only is it deniable but I am denying it. In fact, this is precisely a throwback to that 1990s attitude that nice things wouldn't happen to Pittsburgh unless dramatic, destructive gestures were made. What Murphy and you both fail to understand is that investment and redevelopment was going to come back to Pittsburgh because fundamental economic factors were turning in its favor.

So, a truly forward-looking mayor at the time would have been looking at how to make the best use of the money and assets the City had to offer, given this changing dynamic in Pittsburgh's favor. Instead, as a product of the time with often poor urban planning instincts, Murphy in desperation to get a lot of big projects moving wasted a lot of public money and endorsed a lot of bad plans.

In short, a lot of the good things that have happened recently have happened despite, not because of, things Murphy did. And in some areas, including the North Shore, there are a lot of good things that might have happened but have not in part because of Murphy's mistakes, and we'll never know what else could have been done with all the public money he blew.

Yeah... this can all be argued endlessly, with "proof" for both Murphy's success and failures given the benefit of a decade of hindsight. Though on the stadiums issue (not building them or building them out in the suburbs), I think you are way off.

I don't think for a minute that Murphy was a great mayor, and I agree that his attitude bordered on "develop at all costs" in some cases. I feel he was ahead of his time in recognizing strategic areas of the city for development (when no other civic leaders seemed to show any interest), and pushing an aggressive agenda to make those areas fertile for future private investment. But I can also certainly see how he was of his time with the types of initial developments that resulted.

I do not think Murphy deserves all the credit for good things that have happened in Pittsburgh over the past decade, but it is also an exercise in futility to attempt to prove and naive to suggest that those "fundamental economic factors" should get all the credit either -- that large projects and subsequent private investment were just going to happen because of those "fundamental economic factors" beginning to swing back towards Pittsburgh's favor. If that was singularly the case, we would have seen (and would be seeing) much more large-scale private investment in areas outside those "development zones" Murphy focused on with public seeding... and the fact is we did not and we still are not.

[popstar]

Great pics of Wilkinsburg. Interesting... they remind me a lot of Dormont and I would've never thought of similarities.

[BrianTH]

Some reading on sports stadiums if people are interested:

http://college.holycross.edu/RePEc/s...cingSports.pdf

Researchers who have gone back and looked at economic data for localities that have hosted mega-events, attracted new franchises, or built new sports facilities have almost invariably found little or no economic benefits from spectator sports. Typically, ex post studies of the economic impact of sports have focused on employment (Baade and Matheson, 2002; Feddersen and Maennig, 2009), personal income (Baade and Matheson, 2006a), personal income per capita (Coates and Humphreys, 1999; 2002), taxable sales (Porter, 1999; Coates and Depken, 2009; Baumann, Baade, and Matheson, 2008), or tourist arrivals (Lavoie and Rodriguez, 2005; Baumann, Matheson, and Muroi, 2009). These studies and a multitude of others generally find that the actual economic impact of sports teams or events is a fraction of that claimed by the boosters, and in some cases actually show a reduction in economic activity due to sports.
. . .
Even if commercial sport does induce an increase in economic activity, the efficacy of sport as a developmental tool needs to be considered. The litmus test arguably should not be whether sport induces an increase in economic activity, but rather is it the most efficient method for improving the economy. Focusing on employment, Baade and Sanderson (1997) observed that the cost of creating a full-time equivalent job through sports subsidies far exceeds the cost of job creation through other subsidies.

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.or...0/7/coates.pdf

In stark contrast to the results claimed by most prospective economic impact studies commissioned by teams or stadium advocates, the consensus in the academic literature has been that the overall sports environment has no measurable effect on the level of real income in metropolitan areas. Our own research suggests that professional sports may be a drain on local economies rather than an engine of economic growth.
. . .
Our results indicate:
• The professional sports environment in the 37 metropolitan areas in our sample had no measurable impact on the growth rate of real per capita income in those areas.
• The professional sports environment has a statistically significant impact on the level of real per capita income in our sample of metropolitan areas, and the overall impact is negative.

That article goes on to discuss possible mechanisms for the negative impact on the level of real per capita income, including substitution in public spending and substitution in private spending.

Finally, this article goes into the politics of why sports stadiums continue to get lavish public subsidies, despite the overwhelming evidence that is a poor use of public funds:

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/05/139018...ports-stadiums

The upshot is that there is overwhelming evidence that public spending on sports stadiums is a very poor use of those funds from an economic development perspective. I wouldn't go so far as to say you should actually prohibit sports teams from building stadiums if they want to privately finance them (including acquiring the land for themselves), but you shouldn't be handing them hundreds of millions of dollars in public financing, then adding on sweetheart land development deals, and sweetheart parking guarantees, and so on, because there is no real evidence to support the claim that any of that is actually a good idea.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by popstar

Great pics of Wilkinsburg. Interesting... they remind me a lot of Dormont and I would've never thought of similarities.

All those are just captures from Google streetview, which is getting better and better.

Anyway, Wilkinsburg had a broadly similar early history to places like Dormont and Mt. Lebanon in that it was a prominent "streetcar suburb" during its prime growth period. To the extent there is a distinguishing factor in terms of early-middle history, it is that Wilkinsburg has also always been located along the main surface route from central Pittsburgh to points east, eventually including Philadelphia, which at various times has involved trails, stagecoach roads, the Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line, the Lincoln Highway, and now I-376. It even had an airport at one point, and it was close enough to the Mon for reasonable river access. All that helps explain why Wilkinsburg ended up with such a large commercial district, although it was also just conveniently located with enough level land to serve as a commercial hub for many of the surrounding communities.

Of course Wilkinsburg's track eventually diverged from places like Dormont and Mt. Lebanon (obviously not to its favor), but as with East Liberty (which had a similar story), now that regional and local dynamics have shifted back in positive directions, some of those fundamental attributes and still-existing capital investments from prior years provide the potential for a relatively quick renewal.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

That's definitely the hope, and the CDC keeps saying there are businesses itching to get started.

Incidentally, I am really hoping a large percentage of the historic structures in the core downtown can be saved. If so, Wilkinsburg could end up particularly charming.

I completely and totally agree. Not to mention it's a lot closer to the Parkway East, which makes it quite accessible for those who don't necessarily want to deal with the insanity of the road network surrounding the East Liberty/Shadyside area... Wilkinsburg DOES have great bones and I truly hope that this seed money helps to really get the ball rolling to fix up some of those dilapidated, yet still seemingly intact and renovatable, structures.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[Jonboy1983]

http://urbandesigneggshell.blogspot....nsylvania.html

My latest blog post, my first in over two weeks (sorry, it's been a rough month). I know it primarily focuses on Jeannette considering its isolation, but do any of you suppose instating regional rail service along the NS corridor to Greensburg could spur some additional growth in the eastern corridor? I'm thinking Wilkinsburg could be a rail access point, turning a station there into more of an intermodal facility with the busway there as well.

I know it's a long way off if at all possible considering NS position towards any kind of passenger rail service in that corridor. It's a shame really...

[markson33]

The Amtrak line already takes that route. It might not be that hard to have a line that goes to EL, Wilkinsburg, Jeannette and Greensburg. I'm not sure there would be enough ridership though to justify it.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Jonboy1983

I'm thinking Wilkinsburg could be a rail access point, turning a station there into more of an intermodal facility with the busway there as well.

Back when they studied commuter rail on the NS/Amtrak tracks in 2009, they considered Shadyside for a possible station for access to the East End and transfers to the Busway. It was a very tight location so there couldn't be parking, but I guess the appeal was you could imagine people walking to the Shadyside hospital complex for work.

Big PDF:

http://www.westmorelandtransit.com/p...RT_6-25-09.pdf

I do wonder if they considered it now or in the future whether they would look at different East End station possibilities. Off hand I'd guess the new Transit Center in East Liberty might be the first choice as of today, but a future intermodal transit center in Wilkinsburg could well be a leading contender down the road. Certainly the very large park-and-ride lot at Wilkinsburg Station on the Busway gives you a lot of land to work with (and I would love to see the old warehouse and surrounding land just to the north incorporated into a TOD plan):





Or maybe both. This Rapid Bus map from the TDP shows how the East End BRT network might look eventually, and you can see the virtue of stations at East Liberty or Wilkinsburg, but you would get maximum coverage by doing both:

[BrianTH]

A lot more steel is up on PNC Tower:

[Jonboy1983]

Originally Posted by markson33

The Amtrak line already takes that route. It might not be that hard to have a line that goes to EL, Wilkinsburg, Jeannette and Greensburg. I'm not sure there would be enough ridership though to justify it.

Right, Amtrak already does serve that corridor. Here in the Philly area (especially where I'm at, Downingtown), Amtrak shares corridors with the Paoli/Thorndale, Trenton, and Wilmington/Newark DE lines. Westmoreland County is rather populated with over 360k residents. Certainly it's not Chester County, but it does have pockets of densely populated areas, particularly in Irwin, Jeannette, and Greensburg. Even at that, you could have park-and-ride facilities to accommodate the surrounding residents around those urban clusters. One of them is Hempfield Township, which is the most populous suburb of all of Greater Pittsburgh. Between Greensburg and Hempfield, you have close to 60 thousand residents. Near that, you have Jeannette and Irwin to add another several thousand residents...

My theory is that by instating regional rail service, you'd be catering to mostly residents commuting to either Greensburg or Pittsburgh for employment. After a while, you might see pedestrian or even transit-oriented commercial centers opening up in places like Jeannette, Irwin, Turtle Creek, etc., which I think would only bolster overall ridership along the corridor...

Regarding PNC Tower, raise the roof!!

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

A lot more steel is up on PNC Tower:

Like any construction projects, setting up, prepping and groundwork/foundation work takes a ton of time and caution for very little visible progress. Once that is built though, construction takes off and especially with high rises it seems the floors of structural steel go up very fast. Then once it's topped off and the façade is finished the interior work will again take a lot of time to complete.

The Tower at PNC Plaza will now TAKE OFF vertically which is one of the most exciting phases to watch.

MY favorite point though is to to see the façade finished when you get that first glimpse of the finished product, such as the massing the skyline impact and the newness of the design that is the most exciting moment.

[Urbana]

Article detailing Peduto's transit vision.

http://www.pittnews.com/news/article...9bb30f31a.html

Source: The Pitt News

[EventHorizon]

I'm very much looking forward to the Peduto years - he has great vision... let's just hope a perfect storm of his visions and money come together during his term/s.

[BrianTH]

A prominent former firehouse in Point Breeze is on the verge of redevelopment (although it sounds like the prospective buyer is still piecing together financing):

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/...breeze-700917/

[BrianTH]

Speaking of the tangle of deals on the North Shore, the Pittsburgh Stadium Authority (a public entity which built Three Rivers but now only operates parking) is going to be compelled to build another parking garage as surface lots are being converted to other uses:

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/4...#axzz2d1mikOgU

If you don't know the back story, part of the sweetheart deal for the sports teams was a guarantee of a certain amount of nearby parking. So as the land between the stadiums is developed, the public has to build garages for their patrons to use. This was actually holding up the land development at one point, because the first such garage was sitting mostly vacant most of the time and the Stadium Authority et al didn't want to blow more money on another garage.

On the plus side, with the opening of the NSC the existing garage started to fill up during work weeks, so now they appear less reluctant to build more parking garages. On the minus side, it is a shame we are talking about surrounding that subway station with a bunch of parking, rather than residences and such.