Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Pennsylvania > Pittsburgh
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 08-25-2011, 09:54 AM
 
20,273 posts, read 32,861,408 times
Reputation: 2910

Advertisements

Local volunteers with help from a DC non-profit (KaBOOM!) built a new playground in McKees Rocks:

In a few hours, volunteers create playground in McKees Rocks

These sorts of things can cumulatively make a huge difference in the trajectory of neighborhoods.

A new charter school has opened in Penn Hills:

Penn Hills charter school opens

I find it interesting they are having a little trouble filling up--we probably aren't saturated yet in any fundamental sense, but the number of charter schools in the area has grown rapidly in recent years.

Finally, the Heinz History Center is taking over an adjacent building for storage and a conservation center:

Heinz History Center looks to gain some elbow room

This is a prominent building on that block of Penn Avenue (it is the nine-story American Equipment Company building):

pittsburgh - Google Maps

The museum has done a nice job with the look of its other buildings, so I think this could be a cool project.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 08-25-2011, 12:42 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh area
9,912 posts, read 24,532,157 times
Reputation: 5162
I was kind of annoyed and sad at the History Center announcement, actually, since that building on Penn was set to become condos a few years ago. I had contact with one of the partners in the building about potentially buying a unit.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-25-2011, 01:09 PM
 
20,273 posts, read 32,861,408 times
Reputation: 2910
Quote:
Originally Posted by greg42 View Post
I was kind of annoyed and sad at the History Center announcement, actually, since that building on Penn was set to become condos a few years ago. I had contact with one of the partners in the building about potentially buying a unit.
Was that the couple of kids with no real experience in developing real estate? I may be confusing it with another project, but whatever story I am thinking of represented as close as Pittsburgh got to participating in the real estate bubble.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-25-2011, 01:35 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh area
9,912 posts, read 24,532,157 times
Reputation: 5162
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianTH View Post
Was that the couple of kids with no real experience in developing real estate? I may be confusing it with another project, but whatever story I am thinking of represented as close as Pittsburgh got to participating in the real estate bubble.
That may be right about the kids with no experience. I don't see how it's right in being as close to the area participating in the bubble. I would generally count those whose home values decreased as being the closest.

It's quite possible their economics didn't work out. Whether they paid a small enough amount for the building I don't know. Certainly their funding/whatever plans didn't ultimately work out with the timing, which I think was around this time 3 years ago. But they were attempting the same thing the Penn Ave guy is, trying to get well-priced condos on the market at $200-300 a square foot. Otto Milk did this to a degree as well, and maybe a few units in the Carlyle.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-25-2011, 02:00 PM
 
20,273 posts, read 32,861,408 times
Reputation: 2910
Quote:
Originally Posted by greg42 View Post
I don't see how it's right in being as close to the area participating in the bubble.
What I meant is that in bubble markets, inexperienced money started flooding into real estate. That included banks, developers, and individuals who bought multiple homes assuming they could flip them for a profit. If I am thinking of the right project, my impression was that the proposed developers were a couple of young people who had caught the real estate bug but didn't really know what they were doing.

Quote:
But they were attempting the same thing the Penn Ave guy is, trying to get well-priced condos on the market at $200-300 a square foot. Otto Milk did this to a degree as well, and maybe a few units in the Carlyle.
I certainly didn't mean to imply the idea is inherently faulty. But it is a tricky business.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-25-2011, 03:50 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh area
9,912 posts, read 24,532,157 times
Reputation: 5162
Heh, well, flooding maybe is for bubbles, but inexperienced money goes into real estate all the time, not even always in a small way. I don't remember the backgrounds of the three guys. Let's see, how far back can we search because they had an article in the Biz Times....

Yah, here tis: More Strip lofts in the works - Pittsburgh Business Times

It doesn't say their background, apart from Fox Chapel, heh, and just how young they were. I guess their inexperience didn't prove to be an asset in this case, as the architect suggested.

In the article it said they were in the midst of due diligence on the building. They were already into the stingy credit market enough to mention it there so they either didn't in fact have a line on the private financing they expected or they found a serious issue with the building leading them to abandon the project. I wish I still had the emails from Luke just to see the date of the latest correspondence that came in, maybe would have given a better idea of when they finally abandoned it. (I know the last thing I sent him got no response, but I think that was well into the following year.)

I guess the damn cold storage project also mentioned in that article (it has its own article from somewhere back then as well) never went anywhere either. That always sounded fun. Wouldn't you want an apartment with 3-foot-thick outer walls? Nice and quiet.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-25-2011, 05:44 PM
 
112 posts, read 161,168 times
Reputation: 50
Just happy something is going in there. That building was always a little depressing sitting there, empty.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Pennsylvania > Pittsburgh
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top