Station Square project finally going to break ground? (Pittsburgh, Liberty: apartments, for rent)

[Bobjefferson]

Good news, it has been a long wait and hopefully this great location will begin to get the attention it deserves.

Station Square apartment project expected to start in summer | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

As a side note, I get the sensation that the announcement of these types of proiects has been slowing down lately(I'm not counting, maybe that's wrong but it's what I feel after reading sites like this as a hobby). Maybe the market really is beginning to get saturated with apartments...one has to wonder how many units of $1-2000 our city can reasonably support. There is still the office component but wow, with all of the empty land in the Strip, arena site, Hazelwood, and the north shore, it may be another generation before we see the full realization of many of these renderings.

[jea6321]

Originally Posted by Bobjefferson

Maybe the market really is beginning to get saturated with apartments...one has to wonder how many units of $1-2000 our city can reasonably support. .

the market is beginning to saturate, but more so in the 2k and up range. there is plenty of demand for 1-1.5k units.

[UKyank]

One good part of such oversaturation is that I've begun to heard grumblings from people that own houses they put about $0 into but have been able to charge lots for rent about not being able to find tenants

[Bobjefferson]

I have been hoping to see that trickle-down effect for a while now. I hope more landlords are beginning to have the same problem, especially in South Oakland where they can charge an arm and a leg for a dump.

[jea6321]

Originally Posted by Bobjefferson

I have been hoping to see that trickle-down effect for a while now. I hope more landlords are beginning to have the same problem, especially in South Oakland where they can charge an arm and a leg for a dump.

the thing with oakland is the new units are mostly 1-2 br and college kids want to live in big party houses with a bunch of friends. That market will see a bit of pressure, but not too much.

[Bobjefferson]

Originally Posted by jea6321

the thing with oakland is the new units are mostly 1-2 br and college kids want to live in big party houses with a bunch of friends. That market will see a bit of pressure, but not too much.

The way I am imagining it is there is a decent sized population of upperclassman undergrads and mostly graduate students who prefer apartment style living, or better houses in better neighborhoods. That is why we see the undergrads with more money living in apartments/houses in Squirrel Hill, Shadyside and Friendship alongside the graduate school population.

I hope that with more apartments coming online oriented towards this demographic, such as along Forbes in Oakland, Centre/Craig, Portal Project, etc, it relieves some of the pressure on those aforementioned houses/apartments currently filled by this demographic and in turn has the desired effect on Oakland rents.

I agree it will be a much lower level of pressure, but then again if East Liberty continues on its current trajectory that too could have an effect in Oakland. I haven't looked at Pitt's plans recently but I imagine they will be adding more student housing in the next few years as well.

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by Bobjefferson

The way I am imagining it is there is a decent sized population of upperclassman undergrads and mostly graduate students who prefer apartment style living, or better houses in better neighborhoods. That is why we see the undergrads with more money living in apartments/houses in Squirrel Hill, Shadyside and Friendship alongside the graduate school population.

From what I see, this is right. About 1/3 of Pitt students and over half of CMU students are graduate/professional students. Because of branch campuses serving to start out freshmen, I'd assume the Pitt undergrads are disproportionately upperclass students. And I see more and more students going into the parts of Squirrel Hill that are farther from Oakland.

[_Buster]

Does naybody know the size/height of this project? Wondering how good the views will be.

[lprmesia]

I think even with the oversaturation of the market that this will be a winner. The location on this might be one of the best in the city, given that the price is right. Walking distance to downtown. Views. Walking distance to South Side and Station Square. Bike Trail Access. T Access right across the street. Parking included.

I saw some people complain about the $6M in grants being public funding for private development - but I think they're missing the big picture here, which is that the $6M in grants is going towards infrastructure build out to support a $200M project providing tax revenues (and then some) back.

The only negative about this project is that I likely won't be able to afford it.

[Faer]

I'm a fan of this project. I do wish it contained an commercial component (I think that is my major complaint at the other end of Carson: SSW really separates commercial and residential and not to its benefit...well, that and that the Cheesecake Factory.)

Anyway, I think going from 0% to < 50% residential will change the dynamic of station square pretty significantly, hopefully de-tourist trap it some. And There's a lot of land in station square yet to fill (and really all the way up to 8th street.) There's 3 surface lots behind the hotel, another surface lot past the soccer stadium and space at the bottom of the incline that was once going to be a hotel (think that fell through.) I hope this connects station square drive with McKean - I think I heard once that it did. They really need to redo the layout of Station Square Dr, make it more 'complete street' or whatever, and get rid of the staircase sidewalks. The "mall" side sidewalk is really stupid over there, its all crooked with stairs and airconditioning units and stuff in the way. Also need to make a proper connector from the trail segment onto smithfield st brigde. And just..do something else with that mall space, maybe keep the outside storefronts, but whatever that's supposed to be right now aint working. Station Square development takes a back seat to other areas right now, but glad to see this project happen.