status/review of downtown

[mjcatl2]

residential developments have picked up in pace in recent years. As recently as 2000, it would be hard to imagine that the critical mass of residential options would start to happen this decaded. At that point the Penn Garrision building was big news and an early major development in the rebirth of downtown as a neighborhood. The Penn Garrision is in fact a success and early results of the nearby Heinz buildings is positive and even more exciting is some of the more recent news (passt year or so).

I pulled this info from a couple PG, Trib and Business Times stories, so most of this is familiar to most who post here, but I thought it would be fun to put it all (as much as I could find) together.

First, let's look at the Triangle itself. I'm talkin' the pure traditional definition of downtown, bounded by Ft Pitt BLVD, Ft Duquesne and 579. We'll get back to the N Shore, Strip, Uptown and Southside after...

1)930 Penn Avenue -- 23 apartments, to be completed by fall 2005.

2) 100 Seventh Street -- 151 apartments, to be completed by spring 2006.

3) One Fifty-One Firstside -- 84 condos, to be completed by summer, 2006.

4) The Union National Bank Building, Fourth and Wood -- 59 to 60 condos, to be completed by fall 2006.

Ones that seem to be more tentative/in earlier planning stages:

5) Ohio-based EV Bishoff Co. plans to create residential condos out of its 22-story Park Building

6) Wexford-based developer Stonebridge Equities Co. wants to develop a 29-story tower on Penn Avenue in which it will include eight stories of luxury condominiums.

7) Possible sale of the Technical Institute of Pittsburgh with the prospect of converting it into between 18 and 24 moderately priced residential units

8) Conestoga Building at 7 Wood St. into 24 two-bedroom units on the second through seventh floors, with the first floor set aside for retail or other commercial uses.

9) seven-story building at 111 Wood St. into 18 two-bedroom units of student housing.

Both are for geared towards Point Park students

10) Art Institute of Pittsburgh unveiled plans to convert a nine-story warehouse in the First Side district into 140 apartments for about 650 students

Other conversions include:

11)Commonwealth Building; the Standard Life Building (44 two-bedroom student apartments)

12) the 24,000-square-foot Fidelity Building

13) the 60,000-square-foot Arrott Building

And I might have missed a thing or two. I know that the articles I had, didn't have Eve Pickers' small Cultural District projects.

And again, the Penn Garrision is doing great - from the Trib:

With Oxford Development Co. as its developers, the RIDC created the Penn-Garrison, a 117-unit apartment complex at 915 Penn Ave. The Penn-Garrison opened its doors in April 2001, offering a mix of units ranging from 500 square-foot studios to two-bedroom units measuring more than 2,000 square feet. With rents ranging from $880 to $2,700 a month, the Penn-Garrison's occupancy rate in recent months has been about 90 percent, property manager Fred Sorrentino said.

That particular article had also discussed that recent conversions (or planned ones) will take seveal hundred thousand sq ft of space off of the commercial list. This is good because the space is just sitting there, Pittsburgh can't absorb it that fast with business growth and these are older buildings anyway, that I think make sense for such conversions. Additionally, many business seem to prefer newer buildings annyway.

[PghUSA]

Thanks for the breakdown Mj, with all the development going on even I sometimes lose track of what is going when and how soon. That snapshot you got really is a help!

[tooluther]

the Downtown Living Initative will be publishing the third quarter market report within a few weeks. It has an updated "Pipeline" attached to it. There are over 1500 market rate units planned, under construction, or in lease up. and 227 student units in the same categories.