PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II

[Don't Be That Guy]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Interesting article about retail Downtown, with what appears to me to be some cross-currents in terms of visions:

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/ci...s/201703140082

My two cents--I don't see any need to try to make Downtown a retail "destination" for people in the local metro area. What I would like is for it to have the sorts of retail that serves the needs and wants of people already living or coming to Downtown--residents, workers, visitors, and so on. If then some locals want to make a special trip Downtown for shopping, great, but I wouldn't actually try to chase that market.

There may be some success with the specialty retail, especially since the PDP can keep rents low in some buildings, but I agreed that it's going to be next to impossible to make Downtown a retail destination. National retail stores are already contracting regionally and consolidating to the North Hills/Ross Park Mall (Blech!), so trying to force it downtown is not likely to work.

Frankly, I'm more concerned with the health of our neighborhood retail. Have you been down Walnut Street lately? There are almost as many empty storefronts as there are active retail uses. And the only recent additions to East Liberty have been restaurants and banks. My thought is that Walnut Capital and other property owners have set their rents higher than slower traffic neighborhood retail can support.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Don't Be That Guy

Frankly, I'm more concerned with the health of our neighborhood retail. Have you been down Walnut Street lately? There are almost as many empty storefronts as there are active retail uses. And the only recent additions to East Liberty have been restaurants and banks. My thought is that Walnut Capital and other property owners have set their rents higher than slower traffic neighborhood retail can support.

I haven't been to Walnut Street in at least a year (looks okay on streetview from last summer), but East Liberty is looking very overbuilt in terms of retail. East Liberty Place north is finally mostly rented out, albeit mostly not to retailers. East Liberty Place South is still vacant. The Penn/Highland building is still vacant. Eastside Bond actually has some tenants - a bank, cellphone store, and soon a frozen yogurt place - but it still has a lot of vacancy as well, most notably the retail space on the S Highland building, which has been built out for at least a year now. Then there's the smaller scale structures. Penn Avenue has a lot of vacancy. N. Highland is now mostly vacant structures. Indigo Square is still 1/3rd vacant over five years after being opened. I'm not sure East Liberty will ever have the commercial demand needed to fill up the current commercial footprint unless density within a walking radius climbs by another few thousand people.

We've of course discussed the high levels of vacancy in South Side's commercial area in the past. Honestly Butler Street in Lawrenceville seems to be the healthiest local retail corridor in the city right now, but even there it's clear that demand will never rise enough to occupy all of the old Victorian storefronts - some are occupied by random offices or even apartments. I think urban planning needs to move towards the idea of allowing everyone to be in a 5-10 minute walk from a walkable business district with a few blocks of activity, rather than trying to keep large retail concentrations afloat.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by Don't Be That Guy

There may be some success with the specialty retail, especially since the PDP can keep rents low in some buildings, but I agreed that it's going to be next to impossible to make Downtown a retail destination. National retail stores are already contracting regionally and consolidating to the North Hills/Ross Park Mall (Blech!), so trying to force it downtown is not likely to work.

Frankly, I'm more concerned with the health of our neighborhood retail. Have you been down Walnut Street lately? There are almost as many empty storefronts as there are active retail uses. And the only recent additions to East Liberty have been restaurants and banks. My thought is that Walnut Capital and other property owners have set their rents higher than slower traffic neighborhood retail can support.

Outside of food and drink, brick and mortar retail is just going to keep getting harder and harder. I realize that my wife and I are probably an extreme case but we really almost never shop in actual stores except for perishable groceries. Everything else just gets delivered to our side porch via Amazon/Jet.com/etc.

[TBone7281]

Originally Posted by GeneW

Outside of food and drink, brick and mortar retail is just going to keep getting harder and harder. I realize that my wife and I are probably an extreme case but we really almost never shop in actual stores except for perishable groceries. Everything else just gets delivered to our side porch via Amazon/Jet.com/etc.

It's certainly moving that way... we are getting more and more stuff delivered. It used to just be Amazon Prime, but has recently started including Target and Sam's Club.

[Don't Be That Guy]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I haven't been to Walnut Street in at least a year (looks okay on streetview from last summer), but East Liberty is looking very overbuilt in terms of retail. East Liberty Place north is finally mostly rented out, albeit mostly not to retailers. East Liberty Place South is still vacant. The Penn/Highland building is still vacant. Eastside Bond actually has some tenants - a bank, cellphone store, and soon a frozen yogurt place - but it still has a lot of vacancy as well, most notably the retail space on the S Highland building, which has been built out for at least a year now. Then there's the smaller scale structures. Penn Avenue has a lot of vacancy. N. Highland is now mostly vacant structures. Indigo Square is still 1/3rd vacant over five years after being opened. I'm not sure East Liberty will ever have the commercial demand needed to fill up the current commercial footprint unless density within a walking radius climbs by another few thousand people.

We've of course discussed the high levels of vacancy in South Side's commercial area in the past. Honestly Butler Street in Lawrenceville seems to be the healthiest local retail corridor in the city right now, but even there it's clear that demand will never rise enough to occupy all of the old Victorian storefronts - some are occupied by random offices or even apartments. I think urban planning needs to move towards the idea of allowing everyone to be in a 5-10 minute walk from a walkable business district with a few blocks of activity, rather than trying to keep large retail concentrations afloat.

Considering the way retail is trending I'd say that Pittsburgh, and other cities, have far more square feet dedicated for commercial use than will ever be necessary in the future. The planners and the neighborhood advocates understandably want (or do they require?) ground floor commercial/retail uses for new buildings to activate the street, but unfortunately it is mostly sitting empty.

So which is the least-bad option? Non-commercial uses at street level, or whole blocks of vacant store fronts?

And sort-of related to this; The city is really missing a big opportunity with the shrinking and consolidation of national retail. Somehow the North Hills has created it's own gravity and is attracting the new retail shopping. From a regional standpoint, placing destination retail in the center of the region, say in East Liberty, makes sense geographically, but that isn't happening. And from what has been heard in passing, and witnessed with the Penn Plaza debacle, there is major pushback against additional density and big box retail. And in Lawrenceville, there was word that the community group was preparing to go to war with a property owner over rumors that a chain retail store, supposedly Banana Republic, and a Starbucks was looking to move in.

So it seems that Pittsburgh wants retail everywhere, except for the places retail wants to be.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Don't Be That Guy

Considering the way retail is trending I'd say that Pittsburgh, and other cities, have far more square feet dedicated for commercial use than will ever be necessary in the future. The planners and the neighborhood advocates understandably want (or do they require?) ground floor commercial/retail uses for new buildings to activate the street, but unfortunately it is mostly sitting empty.

So which is the least-bad option? Non-commercial uses at street level, or whole blocks of vacant store fronts?

We could always have ground floor active uses of formerly commercial real estate - even if automation does lead to the post-scarcity/post mass employment future some are now predicting. You'd just need to have commercial rents fall to the point that things like nonprofit community centers and vanity businesses are viable. As an example of what I mean, consider how active college campuses tend to be even though relatively little in terms of active commerce goes on there.

FWIW, I think the suburbs will ultimately have it even worse than the cities with the decline of retail. Walkable retail is at least an "experience" in a sense that traveling to a faceless strip mall is not. On the other hand, repurposing strip malls is a lot easier than repurposing traditional walkable business districts.

[eschaton]

New zoning agenda up.

The big news is the Uptown apartment project which I noticed was listed on the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership's website last week has landed. It's a six-story, 35-unit apartment building with ground-floor retail. Location is here. Keep in mind that although there are several parking lots on that block, only the one closest to Pride Street is owned by the Williams family, so this may be a pretty skinny building. They're asking for a number of variances, but Uptown isn't noted for NIMBYs, so hopefully it sails through.

Not too much else of interest. October Development is trying once again to get infill houses built here. Looks like they dropped the unit count from 6 to 4, but they still need variances. That's about it.

[Gilamonster]

350 Oliver is coming along nicely. I would have rather had the top section be all condos but this hotel does bring another unique hotel brand here. This should be a nice mixed use project when it's all said and done with. Glad to hear that it will still be 18 stories.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

That's awesome! 56 apartments, 174-room hotel, rooftop bar on the 18th floor (an 18th floor!) . . . I was worried we hadn't heard about this phase for a while, but it looks like it is shaping up very well.

Moxy is also yet another great new brand for the City. Moxy is a "Millenial" brand--it is supposed to be affordable but cool, with an international/modern vibe and cutting edge technology.

Edit: I guess this is in fact 18 floors, but I wonder if the design will be tweaked:

Looks great. That very visible intersection is the perfect place for a building of size and distinction.

[Gilamonster]

Could have it's own thread.

[photoLith]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

That's awesome! 56 apartments, 174-room hotel, rooftop bar on the 18th floor (an 18th floor!) . . . I was worried we hadn't heard about this phase for a while, but it looks like it is shaping up very well.

Moxy is also yet another great new brand for the City. Moxy is a "Millenial" brand--it is supposed to be affordable but cool, with an international/modern vibe and cutting edge technology.

Edit: I guess this is in fact 18 floors, but I wonder if the design will be tweaked:

Whoa, the design changed a ton I guess. Is this for sure?

[BrianTH]

I pulled that photo from the McKnight website:

http://mcknightrealtypartners.com/350-oliver/

I'm not sure that is absolutely the final design, but something like that seems to be consistent with the article.

We also shop a LOT online.

[TBone7281]

Originally Posted by Gilamonster

Could have it's own thread.

Maybe, though if I recall there was a thread for The Gardens/Tower Two-Sixty that went maybe 5 pages and was almost exclusively made up of comments from people that post in here already. Maybe there will be more interest in this one. Maybe.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

The big news is the Uptown apartment project which I noticed was listed on the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership's website last week has landed. It's a six-story, 35-unit apartment building with ground-floor retail. Location is here. Keep in mind that although there are several parking lots on that block, only the one closest to Pride Street is owned by the Williams family, so this may be a pretty skinny building. They're asking for a number of variances, but Uptown isn't noted for NIMBYs, so hopefully it sails through.

Given the unit count, hopefully it is in fact just on that lot.

Generally, it would be really nice if this recent infill momentum in Uptown continued.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Given the unit count, hopefully it is in fact just on that lot.

Let's see. The total square footage of the Williams' lots in that area are 6,931 square feet. If you figure the first floor will be all commercial, the upper stories will have an average of seven units per floor. That's an average of 990 square feet per apartment - smaller really due to circulation space. That's right around the size of the average one-bedroom today. So clearly there's enough space in the footprint to fit the planned units, presuming the variances are granted.

[eschaton]

I wouldn't bring up national politics here otherwise, but since the topic of Trump's policy effect on Pittsburgh was brought up...

It looks like Trump is not going to decimate the Department of Transportation to the degree to which it was initially reported in January. The cuts, however, are fairly substantial (13% or $2.4 billion).

Most notable is the proposed total elimination of the TIGER grant program, which were first implemented as part of the stimulus in 2009. Pittsburgh already won $19 million in TIGER grants for the 579 cap project linking Downtown and the Hill.

Thankfully, Pittsburgh is looking for funding for the new BRT program through Small Starts (part of the Capital Investment Grant program) not TIGER. And of course presidential budgets are essentially suggestions - Congress actually writes them. But still, there will be less money to fund transit expansion in the foreseeable future.

Edit: Forget the above paragraph, that program is getting cut too. BRT plan in severe danger.

[themaguffin]

Everything is in danger with that corrupt, incompetent orange ahole in office and his white hood ideologue gang hell bent on scorching the Earth.

[themaguffin]

the hotel is a nice addition. Fits in well.

[BrianTH]

The long-discussed, never-advanced convention center hotel appears to be dead due to other new hotels absorbing demand:

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburg...terest-in.html

Both the Drury and upcoming AC Hotel are in very close proximity, and really nothing in Downtown is that far.

So, this doesn't concern me per se, but I would like to see something done with those build sites some day.

[eschaton]

New Planning Commission schedule. Three new items.

1. A house is being demolished at 523 Grandview. This was mentioned as part of a previous planning commission presentation, so there's not much to say

2. A new house is being constructed where an old (quite nice) house stood at 520 Grandview. The replacement house is a generic piece of shit that looks like everything else being built. I know the historic house had some issues (I saw interior photos when it was on the market) but I can't believe they are replacing it with this.

3. Finally, a big project has landed - the new Station Square East apartments. Looks to be two six-story buildings with 315 units in total, plus retail space and parking. The design is contemporary, but I've seen worse. I actually like the glass-clad wing overlooking the river.

There's a historic designation nomination for Lemmon Row (a block north of the Mexican War Streets) I haven't seen before, but it isn't labeled as new business. Maybe it's continued from a long time ago.