Happenings in Pittsburgh!! (Johnstown, Sharon, Sharpsburg: relocating, maintenance, apartments)

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South Oakland's tech strip to expand - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Pittsburgh's "technology corridor" is about to enter a major phase of development in South Oakland.
It's happening on a stretch of land sandwiched between Second Avenue and the Monongahela River where the Pittsburgh Technology Center already houses a collection of seven university and corporate buildings.

The city's Urban Redevelopment Authority, working with development partners including John Ferchill of Cleveland and the Regional Industrial Development Corp., has mapped plans for up to 11 buildings that would house just under 1 million square feet of research facilities, laboratories and offices, parking structures and a hotel.

"Building more buildings is a good idea. This is a great place to be," said Larry Manzetti, CEO of the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse. The state-supported greenhouse works to build the region's biotechnology and bioscience industries.

It occupies about 21,000 square feet of fourth-floor space at the Bridgeside Point I building at the technology center, a campus-like business park developed on a 48-acre former Jones & Laughlin steel mill site in the early 1980s by the URA.
Its space includes a 13,000-square-foot incubator for fledgling life sciences companies that local leaders hope will join with developing technology companies to form the backbone of Pittsburgh's "new" regional economy.

With Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh in the city's cramped Oakland neighborhood attracting more than $1 billion a year in research dollars and spawning increasing numbers of spin-off companies, officials say more than 1 million square feet of space will be needed to house such firms over 10 years.

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Union Trust building not left standing long at altar - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

It didn't take long for another buyer to emerge for Downtown's landmark Union Trust Building.
About a week after a New York-based investment group pulled out of a deal to buy the building at 501 Grant St., a major California-based investor on Thursday stepped up to put the building under agreement for purchase.

"I can tell you that the property is under agreement, but I can't identify the buyer," said Jeffrey Ackerman, executive vice president of the CB Richard Ellis/Pittsburgh commercial real estate firm.

The building has a market value of $30.75 million, including land, county records show.

Ackerman declined to specify a sale price. He has been marketing the block-long, 11-story building on behalf of Cigna Corp., its Philadelphia-based owner.
The previous potential buyer, a New York investment group that included Houlihan-Parnes/iCap Realty Advisors, of White Plains, and J.J. Operating Corp., of New York City, pulled out when they could not secure financing.

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Master developer sought for Hazelwood site - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Efforts to bring a $400 million development with housing, commercial space, community amenities and greenspace to a 178-acre former LTV Corp. coke works property in Hazelwood will move forward under new direction, officials said.
A master developer is being sought to spearhead development of the prime riverfront site since Cleveland-based developer Forest City Enterprises Inc. is no longer actively involved.

"By mutual agreement with Forest City, we've decided to move in another direction," Robert Stephenson, president of the Regional Industrial Development Corp., said this week.

The RIDC is the general partner in Almono L.P., a nonprofit partnership of four local foundations that purchased the site in September 2002. Buildout of the project is expected to take years and create 2,400 jobs.

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UPMC continues with more recognition :P

Pop City - Children's Hospital named top pediatric center by U.S. News & World Report

UPMC has done it again, this time for the children.

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has been named one of the best pediatric hospitals in the United States by U.S. News & World Report in its first and newest ranking, “America’s Best Children’s Hospitals.” Children’s ranked 13th among 113 of the country’s top pediatric hospitals. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Children’s Hospital of Boston came in on top.

"Children's is honored to be recognized nationally in rankings such as these," said Roger A. Oxendale, president and CEO. "Having a reputation as one of the top pediatric hospital's in the country really is a testament to our dedication to the patients and families we serve."

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More on UPMC taking over the world! Good or bad? You decide, lol.

Pop City - UPMC reports stellar earnings for 2007, increases staff by 2000

UPMC, the largest employer in Pittsburgh, reports record-breaking earnings again this year, posting a $618 million profit along with the hiring of 2000 new employees, bringing the total to 45,000 for fiscal year 2007.

Earnings were up 18 percent from 2006, marking the fifth year of robust activity. UPMC added more than 170 physicians to the system in the areas of general medicine, community medicine, radiology, surgery, and obstetrics/ gynecology. Another 1830 people were added to support services throughout the system, including clinical staff and information technology, says spokesperson Wendy Zellner.

“Our record profits are allowing us to reinvest in world-class health care while providing increased benefits to the community," says Robert DeMichiei, chief financial officer. “Our success means better care for our patients, more jobs for Pittsburgh, more charity care, and greater efforts by UPMC to revitalize the economy of western Pennsylvania.”

A key to UPMC's record profits was a strong 19.5 percent return on its diversified investment portfolio. Although the health care system is a non-profit, by law it’s qualified to post gains, notes Zellner.

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CMU also catching some more recognition.

Pop City - Carnegie Mellon professor named top innovator in the country

CMU’s Luis von Ahn is well on his way to being one of the country’s next great creative geniuses.

The 28-year-old CMU assistant professor of computer science was recently named one of the top 35 Innovators under the age of 35 by Technology Review magazine, recognition he received for his pioneering research in the field of human computation.

Earlier this year, von Ahn received a Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellowship and last year he landed a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” Ask him what it’s all about and he’ll tell you that his ultimate goal, for now, is to make our lives as efficient as possible by having people teach computers how to be smarter.

“My goal is to give computers tools that they aren’t able to achieve on their own,” says von Ahn. “We should at least be useful when it comes to helping make computers smarter.”

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Developer envisions plush 'green' units - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Former Carnegie Mellon University student Brian Mendelssohn wants to build a three-story, 24-unit luxury-apartment building in Shadyside that would meet green building standards.

Through their company, Botero Development, Mendelssohn and his brother, Irwin, have obtained an option on a three-story vacant commercial building at 5135 Fifth Ave., where the new apartments would be built.

Although Mendelssohn has a conceptual design of the building, he has not obtained an estimate on the cost. A price tag would come once a final design has been completed, he said.

"We hope to demolish the building and begin construction in February or March of 2008, with an opening in the spring of 2009," he said.

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Here is a really great article on the attitude in Pittsburgh about Pittsburgh. Please read this one!

Pop City - Changemakers: Grant Oliphant

For Grant Oliphant, the epiphany came one evening at the Convention Center. Gazing out of the world’s largest green building at the Allegheny River, watching the setting sun sparkling on the water and painting the buildings a burnished gold, Oliphant, the Heinz Endowments’ vice president for programs and planning, realized it was one of the most beautiful scenes he’d ever seen anywhere in the world. “What an amazing place!” he marveled.

It wasn’t always that way. When Oliphant first arrived in 1991, he really didn’t care for Pittsburgh at all. Born in Australia, raised in Denver, son of the noted political cartoonist Pat Oliphant, he served as the late Senator John Heinz’s press secretary. When the Senator died in a plane crash, Oliphant decided to escape the nation’s capital for more family-friendly climes. But after cosmopolitan Washington, Pittsburgh came as a shock to him.

“I really disliked the place,” Oliphant recalls. “Oh, I did like the topography, and the character of the city. But I detested the fact that Pittsburgh was 20 years behind the times on gender, 30 years behind the times on race, and well behind the times on the environment.”

That was then, and this is now. While it took time – all great love affairs take time to distill – Oliphant was won over. “Pittsburgh’s relationship to nature is stunning,” he says, “and our emerging rediscovery of the rivers is a fabulous asset. There is something distinct about Pittsburgh – our neighborhoods, our ethnic heritage. From a quality-of-life perspective, that’s priceless. That’s part of what we celebrate. Here, you can visit a dozen different cities in a day – Bloomfield, Lawrenceville, Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, Oakland, and so on. That is cause for celebration.”

In fact, Oliphant adds, “moving to Pittsburgh was the best choice I could have made. Living in the fabric of a community, it’s a great place to raise my children. I know people of family-raising age who would die to come back here.”

Lovely. We’re all agreed. So what’s the problem?

“There’s an incredible negativity here,” Oliphant shakes his head. “A classic case of civic low self-esteem. In Pittsburgh, it seems, the starting point is always ‘we don’t have what others do.’ We ought to be celebrating. Instead, we trivialize our experiences, as if they don’t measure up to other places.”

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Now if only Pittsburgh had an economy, it'd be an even better place to live.

[beeswax]

Robots and green building and density, oh my! Google Earth, arts, and dinosaur bones, sports arenas and affordable housing...now, if I can get a decent beer, a good job, and see a rockabilly show in the Burgh, I think I'll faint from the thrills. *swoon*