PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[DKNewYork]

Originally Posted by eschaton

One of my biggest concerns about Point Park expansion is because I expect when the "college bubble" bursts within the next 10-20 years* it will be one of the schools hit harder by declining enrollments. I do think the performance-related side of the school will be fairly secure if spun off, but in general I expect that enrollment in private, relatively non-selective schools for liberal arts and random business degrees is going to begin falling through the floor. So we will have demolished structures which could have remained indefinitely for the sake of an organization which may very well not survive another generation.

* It's not really on-topic for the forum, but the primary reason I expect the college bubble to burst is not due to fiscal issues, but the development of "people metrics" by Big Data companies. Employers are developing better ways to determine who will be a qualified worker for a job than their prior educational experience. One these tests are widely used, it will completely wipe away the empty credentialing part of higher education. Once most employers stop demanding educational background, young adults will mostly stop getting college or graduate degrees unless it's for their own personal edification, or because they want a traditional "college experience" and can afford it. Big research universities will be able to survive this, as will traditional small liberal arts campuses. The rest, I'm very doubtful for.

I suspect that you are dead on concerning the coming college bubble burst. The Pew Research Council and the Department of Education have both published reports in recent years that predict that as many as a quarter of American colleges of a particular category---small, private, expensive and mid-to-low tier in terms of quality---are expected to disappear over the next 30 years. I recall that the reasons put forth in these articles dealt more with costs; like small banks, small colleges are finding it increasingly difficult to compete without any benefits of scale. Your "people metrics" analysis is interesting and provides another reason for these little colleges to worry.

While Point Park is in that category, I have concluded---based on some articles and presentations by Point Park’s president Paul Hennigan---that the university is, institutionally, well aware of the challenge and, in fact, this existential challenge is a large part of its drive to improve its facilities, faculty and student mix. Additionally, I suspect that the school’s strategy is to leverage the appeal and success of its nationally-recognized performing arts conservatory to continue to improve all aspects of the university. Hence the push by the university to house its signature school in a better, more marketable, facility… Interestingly, NYU's Tisch School (performing arts) has been dealing with the same challenge---a top-flight program housed wholly in a decrepit Lower East Side facility.

To your specific point about Point Park’s expansion, should the university disappear, I agree that COPA would survive---in fact, thrive---either as a stand-alone institution, like Julliard, or affiliated with another institution. Given that, I am not concerned that the new Playhouse would be rendered useless or obsolete. I realize that my reply is not addressing the issue of relocation of the Forbes Avenue facades, but only the specific issue of whether the new Playhouse will have a purpose in twenty years. It will.

[Topher51]

Originally Posted by Jonboy1983

I'd like to know what field actually DID prefer college education rather than experience. It seems to me that most of the jobs I apply for are looking for folks with years and years of experience. I wish it was the other way around. Maybe I would have been luckier at finding something rather than clawing and pining for a dream job for seven years that would ultimately never come to fruition...

Engineering for one. Every job I have applied for (including my first) listed a Masters Degree as a preference, which thankfully I have. Granted, there is still a ton to learn once you enter the work force that you will not learn in school (or frankly you should learn in school). When I am looking for a new hire, I'd prefer someone with 1-2 years of experience, but sometimes it's better to hire someone fresh out of school and spend time training them to do things the way you'd prefer than to hire some with experience and deal with changing their bad habits. That's just my opinion though.

[bevansr]

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/ci...s/201409290203

So much for the August Wilson Center becoming a hotel...

[Private Dick]

As I said multiple pages back when we began to discuss the issue, the foundations are very powerful.

[DKNewYork]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Point Park's excuse is apparently that in a project the width of an entire block, they just can't spare a foot and a half for the facades.

It is not simply that the university is refusing to alter its plan or give up 18 inches.

From the start, Point Park set out to build a different kind of performing arts center, a different kind of academic performing arts center---one that showcased all the activities associated with live performance rather than just those that occur on the stage. The school sent a team comprised of admin and COPA personnel around the country to visit and assess other academic performing arts centers. Paul Hennigan, the university president, explained it this way in a school publication:

“Designing an academic theater setting is very different than designing a commercial theater. In a commercial theater, patrons see only what's on stage, which represents less than half of the overall show. They don't see the other 50 to 75 percent — everything that goes into the making of a production. The new Playhouse will showcase 100 percent of the creative process — right up until the theater is darkened and the show begins! The concept is unique in Pittsburgh and may in fact be the only theater of its kind in the United States. For example, large windows on the Forbes Avenue side will expose the artistic laboratory to the urban neighborhood, offering a view into the proscenium theater while set building, lighting checks and rehearsals take place.”

I get that some people will dismiss his explanation as arbitrary or bulls**t, but at least know that there is a guiding rationale to the design. It is not simply indifference to these three facades.

The windows of the three Forbes facades might well have “lined up” with the floor plates of a residential or office re-use, but they do not at all line up with the floor plates of the theatre auditorium that will be immediately behind them. To restore the first floor facades appropriately, a lot of the transparency that Paul Hennigan talks about above would be lost.

The theatre to be built behind the facades—the 550 seat proscenium house—is on the western end of the footprint because it will not fit anywhere else. Moving the theatre further east on Forbes was considered but there is not enough property. Why? The eastern end of the lot contains the former Pittsburgh Stock Exchange building, which is largely intact and will be fully restored—interior and façade—as part of the Playhouse project. (An aside: A mezzanine floor that was inserted into the stock exchange building in the 1940s is to be removed so that a spectacular stained glass ceiling will be re-exposed for theatre patrons as well as guests sitting in one of the Playhouse cafes.)

Point Park has spent over $120,000 in additional architects’ fees to attempt to save the facades in place rather than relocate them. This additional work has been done by Westlake Reed Leskosky, the project architect, as well as two outside architects who were brought in solely to find a solution to the façade issue. The ongoing issue is that the outside architects agreed that the WRL floor plan was superior to any of the alternatives, as it made the best use of a very tight footprint and preserved both the Stock Exchange building and better utilized the University Center (formerly the Bank Center).

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by bevansr

So much for the August Wilson Center becoming a hotel...

Not necessarily. The Foundations and their political friends are not actually opposed to doing a hotel, they just wanted to own the building. So now they may turn around and find a developer to do a hotel.

[eschaton]

I have not seen full renderings of the new Pittsburgh Playhouse, but I presume the design is going to eliminate Point Park's surface lots on 4th and Forbes. One could argue that the trade-off of eliminating those surface lots versus the destruction of three nice, but low-scale buildings is worth it.

[PGHFan]

Thanks for the update DKNewYork. Its good to hear something concrete (pardon the pun) rather than simple speculation. It is nice that two buildings are being restored and that the new facility will serve the university's mission.

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by Private Dick

As I said multiple pages back when we began to discuss the issue, the foundations are very powerful.

Terrible news.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I have not seen full renderings of the new Pittsburgh Playhouse, but I presume the design is going to eliminate Point Park's surface lots on 4th and Forbes. One could argue that the trade-off of eliminating those surface lots versus the destruction of three nice, but low-scale buildings is worth it.

That might have made sense back when they were planning to put a 10-storyish dorm tower on the 4th side. But now with their plan being to fill all that key land with low-rise academic buildings, I think it just compounds the problem. I'd rather all that land remain fallow for now than see it occupied by new low-rise buildings . . . which, as has been pointed out, are likely to survive even if Point Park itself collapses.

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

That might have made sense back when they were planning to put a 10-storyish dorm tower on the 4th side. But now with their plan being to fill all that key land with low-rise academic buildings, I think it just compounds the problem. I'd rather all that land remain fallow for now than see it occupied by new low-rise buildings . . . which, as has been pointed out, are likely to survive even if Point Park itself collapses.

We've seen what has happened when a block of historic structures was replaced by a low-rise cultural center... a failed project and a black hole in the Downtown urban fabric.

[Evergrey]

more grants for parking garages...

I was walking the length of Smithfield Friday night with some friends visiting from Philly... they remarked "where are the people?"

It occured to me that Smithfield is basically half parking garages along its route. That is why that failed corridor will never live up to expectations.

http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/6...sburgh-corbett

Corbett: Downtown project will 'make a huge difference' in Pittsburgh



By Melissa Daniels
Monday, Sept. 29, 2014, 12:48 p.m.
Updated 4 minutes ago


A $4 million state grant toward renovating the former Saks Fifth Avenue site and the Henry W. Oliver Building in an investment in the continued transformation of Pittsburgh's Downtown, Gov. Tom Corbett said Monday.

“Pittsburgh is a city on the move,” said Corbett, a Shaler Republican. “Pittsburgh is a destination city.”

The project, a joint venture between McKnight Realty Partners and Millcraft Investments, carries a total cost of more than $130 million.

Plans for the Oliver building include a 225-room hotel operated by Embassy Suites, with a restaurant and other amenities in the top-floor lobby. The Saks site, dubbed 350 Oliver, will have ground-level retail, 100 upper-floor residences, and six levels of parking with room for 585 cars and 60 bicycles.

The development will create an estimated 234 full-time jobs, 65 part-time jobs and 1,250 construction jobs, officials said.

Corbett, who made the grant announcement in Mellon Square Park in front of the site at Smithfield Street and Oliver Avenue, said the development will enable more people “to experience the character of what is Pittsburgh.”

He said the parking plans were “a tipping point” toward making a state investment. Parking is “desperately needed” to get people to stay Downtown for work, shopping or entertainment, he said.

...

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

I get that some people will dismiss his explanation as arbitrary or bulls**t, but at least know that there is a guiding rationale to the design. It is not simply indifference to these three facades.

Yes, that is BS, and yes, it is indifference to the facades. As far as I know the first floors of the facades were always store fronts, and in any event I don't believe they had been notably preserved (go check out the Streetview image as of 2007). On top of all that, the facades only take up part of the frontage on Forbes--the whole adjacent lot is available to do whatever they want to do at street level. So if just seeing into the theaters from the street level was the goal, there is no reason to believe the facades are any sort of practical impediment. As in fact was indicated in their original renderings:



And by the way, isn't it an AMAZING coincidence that the recession hits, torching a bunch of large institutional investment portfolios, and suddenly Point Park all over is delaying and/or scaling down its original "Academic Village Initiative". It is of course possible all this just happened to coincide with new analysis or design processes, but the simpler conclusion is that Point Park is now trying to do all this on the cheap.

Which is perfectly rational of them, but that is no excuse for waiving the historic preservation code, or providing public subsidies for the new crappier versions of their projects. The public shouldn't suffer because Point Park mishandled its investments.

The theatre to be built behind the facades—the 550 seat proscenium house—is on the western end of the footprint because it will not fit anywhere else. Moving the theatre further east on Forbes was considered but there is not enough property. Why? The eastern end of the lot contains the former Pittsburgh Stock Exchange building, which is largely intact and will be fully restored—interior and façade—as part of the Playhouse project.

This is the equally BS 18 inches argument. Here is the plan they circulated when getting approval to do the demo:



You can see the Stock Exchange building down on the lower right (with a prop shop and lounge). You can also see the main theater and main lobby space where they are destroying the facades. And as you can see, the theater would BARELY, if at all, impede on where the Stock Exchange building is located.

So it is probably BS to begin with that you could not move the main theater over to the east. And it certainly is BS that you could not move the main theater a bit father south.

Point Park has spent over $120,000 in additional architects’ fees to attempt to save the facades in place rather than relocate them. This additional work has been done by Westlake Reed Leskosky, the project architect, as well as two outside architects who were brought in solely to find a solution to the façade issue. The ongoing issue is that the outside architects agreed that the WRL floor plan was superior to any of the alternatives, as it made the best use of a very tight footprint and preserved both the Stock Exchange building and better utilized the University Center (formerly the Bank Center).

So obviously you either formally represent Point Park, or they are feeding you information because they view you as a useful conduit.

OK, fine, but that doesn't mean we are getting the whole story from you. For example, did they tell you what the cost estimate for each alternative ended up being? And can you share that with us?

In any event, whether it was because they are cheaping out, or because they do have a slight preference for the exact current layout, or both, is ultimately immaterial. Historic preservation codes regularly require builders to modify their plans--that is the whole purpose of making it a code. So I don't care if the various architects they are paying (and I find the idea of "outside" architects to be a bit laughable when they hired them and they are paying their bills--that's more "inside" architects, not any true "outside" architects) said they slightly liked this plan better. That is not supposed to be up to their architects, that should be up to the HRC, and "on reflection we would really rather just destroy these buildings, OK?" is not supposed to be a sufficient argument.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

We've seen what has happened when a block of historic structures was replaced by a low-rise cultural center... a failed project and a black hole in the Downtown urban fabric.

Bingo. It is highly ironic we are watching basically the same mistakes being made even as we are also watching the ultimate result.

[Topher51]

The WESA website has a picture of the proposed building at the former Saks 5th Ave site. It too big to post here directly, but you can view it on their website. While it will not impact the skyline, it is a nice looking building.

http://wesa.fm/post/former-saks-stor...il-and-housing

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Topher51

While it will not impact the skyline, it is a nice looking building.

I agree. I was hoping for a skinnier, taller apartment tower, but I actually quite like the look nonetheless.

[AaronPGH]

Wow, that rendering is DOPE. Caught me off guard, actually. If you have to do a parking garage above ground, do it like that.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

Wow, that rendering is DOPE. Caught me off guard, actually. If you have to do a parking garage above ground, do it like that.

It should work really well with Mellon Square too. As neatly illustrated by the collage, even the corner balconies should play off the tiered fountain.

[Evergrey]

Just a shame that neato design is being wasted on a puny 100 apartments on top of a garage.

[SkyPittsburgh]

Originally Posted by AaronPGH

Wow, that rendering is DOPE. Caught me off guard, actually. If you have to do a parking garage above ground, do it like that.

Couldn't agree more, this is the way to do it. And, on top of that, I think there are plans to continue the height to almost skyscraper level.