PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

True, overall I think it's a positive development for the reasons you mention; just not a location that offers anything that I personally am very interested in. Though I can see the success it will have as a retail and hotel complex, particularly once the other residential and office components are developed.

We've used the Learning Express a few times (although it is at least 50-50 with the Monroeville location), and the Verizon store, and tried Social. Overall, though, we haven't used it much for a location we pass all the time on the way to East Liberty, but on the other hand we buy almost everything online these days anyway. Regardless, I do think it is reasonable to hope it will mature as a retail spot with the addition of BKSQ 2.0, and maybe more development around that stretch of the Busway.

Speaking of which, the big gap between Penn and the Busway on that side (with the bus garage taking up a large chunk of it) does make it sort of a challenging development area in terms of creating streetwalls and such. I foresee a similar problem if they do redevelop "The Village of Eastside" strip mall at some point--they can undoubtedly greatly increase the overall utilization of that land, but I think it will likely still end up feeling like a complex separated from the overall street grid. Unless they get really aggressive and do something like an extension of Dahlem to meet up with a new street that would basically run through Club One, and maybe cross Penn and run along the eastern edge of the other strip mall complex all the way to Aurelia. That would be pretty cool since you could then add a bridge over the Busway to Broad and voila--that whole area is now tied together with a lot more connectivity and a lot of great development sites:



But anyway, that is a lot to ask.

In contrast, though, the other side of the Busway is all set up for a very cool, more traditional "Main Street" sort of district between Hamilton and Frankstown, including a lot of historic buildings you could incorporate.

[Gee Whiz]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Shollar's letter is brilliant.

Absolutely!

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Shollar's letter is brilliant.

Agreed.

And it is a real problem this plan has been facing bad faith criticisms from not just their rival bidders, but also a bunch of those rival bidder's friends in politics. Even other interested members of the public, or specifically interested members of the local arts and/or African American community, have had trouble breaking through that united front of the rival bidders and their political friends.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by mikebarbaro

It's interesting that the address of the Empire State Building is also 350 fifth ave.

Perhaps the new tower in Pittsburgh could be coined "King Kong's Stepstool"

[SkyPittsburgh]

It was a nice day today, so I decided to take a walk through the Baum-Centre corridor and holy cow, there is a ton of stuff going on!

Former Blockbusters: It appears that whoever owns it is trying to make things more attractive or potentially starting demolition of the site, they have removed some windows and removed a large chunk of bricks.

Hyatt House: It appears that the building has framing to the total height and interior construction has been started.

Morrow Gardens: There is now concrete rising above the surface, just slightly, but progress is continuing to be made.

Baum & Cypress Street: The parcel has been sold, no other known news at the site.

Former Church at S Graham and Centre: Now for sale, looks really run down, but could make for an interesting development.

[eschaton]

I just drove down Fifth Avenue, and the two new Uptown apartment buildings (Action Housing right?) have most of their structure up now waiting for cladding. The improvement to the street wall already is pretty impressive, although I'll need to see the final product of course. I wish I was on foot so I could have had a more detailed look.

[BrianTH]

Oxford plans to break ground within about a month on its Three Crossings project:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburg....html?page=all

They can do the 299-unit apartment building and the first office building now, but want funding help for a garage before they do the remaining office building.

[AaronPGH]

Have we seen any renderings for Three Crossings and their other office building yet?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

Have we seen any renderings for Three Crossings and their other office building yet?

Not me--and I was wondering that myself. Don't they need City planning approval?

Edit: So with a little googling:

http://www.oxforddevelopment.com/newsletter/2560/



And I hate it! Even the dad on the bike and the dude with the skateboard can't stand to look at it.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Oxford plans to break ground within about a month on its Three Crossings project:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburg....html?page=all

They can do the 299-unit apartment building and the first office building now, but want funding help for a garage before they do the remaining office building.

I really, really hope this project turns out as good as the rendering.

[AaronPGH]

Not too shabby! Glad to see some newer twists showing up on this one.

[BrianTH]

Austin's rendering I like. The disturbing thing is my rendering was uploaded and posted later than Austin's:

http://www.oxforddevelopment.com/wp-content/uploads/

But a lot more work was put into Austin's, so hopefully that is the real one:

http://www.oxforddevelopment.com/wp-...-Rendering.jpg

[Austinlee]

^Yeah that MS Paint render ain't so hot.

EDIT: I don't know which is scarier, the building or the faceless ghouls.

[BrianTH]

Could the bad one be the office portion versus the (good) residential portion?

[photoLith]

Hey look, it looks like instead of using a full brick facade they cheaped out and did the top floors in that horrid fucking metal sheet siding, WTF, why do all developers these days ruin their projects with metal siding, just do the whole damned thing in brick.

[Urbana]

To add a little more mystery to Three Crossings' design. Here are some (pretty horrible) renderings from Rycon's website:





http://www.ryconinc.com/projects-res...ecrossings.php

[SkyPittsburgh]

Originally Posted by Urbana

To add a little more mystery to Three Crossings' design. Here are some (pretty horrible) renderings from Rycon's website:





http://www.ryconinc.com/projects-res...ecrossings.php

[photoLith]

Wow, that looks horrifying. It looks like a county jail or a youth correctional facility in that rendering.

[SkyPittsburgh]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

I really, really hope this project turns out as good as the rendering.

This rendering appears to be the one most drawn out, the one with the most detail to it. If I had to wager, I would think this is the design they are going with.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Urbana

To add a little more mystery to Three Crossings' design. Here are some (pretty horrible) renderings from Rycon's website

Hmmm. I'd say those are more or less the same basic layout as Austin's rendering, but with very different design details.