Reclaiming The Riverfront (Pittsburgh, Penn: credit, theatre, colleges)
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The problem is that many years ago, the County merged its Planning Department into the Office of Economic Development. Now the purpose of a Planning Department is to encourage sensible growth whereas the purpose of an Economic Development office is to encourage developers to spend dollars.
The last great achievement of the old Planning Department was a Master Plan which include the preservation and enhancement of greenspaces. It also would have protected large chunks of all of the riverfronts from overdevelopment. You can still get copies of it from the County and it is quite nice to look at.
It was also highly unpopular with the land speculators (I won't mention any names but they are familiar to Pittsburghers). They lobbied the County hard to tone down the notion of a "Master Plan" and eventually convinced our great county commissioners that the sensible thing was to put the department under the thumb of Economic Development. Most of the good people simply left.
The result has been the cannibalization of established economic entities by new developments which produce no net increases in benefits to the community. The Waterfront took business from Monroeville and Ross Park, as well as Station Square, and the South Side Works pretty much put the nail in the coffin. Cranberry cannibalized Ross Park and Kilbuck was ready to do the same thing with an ill-planned WalMart until the hillside fell down. The Point at Robinson and the shops in North Fayette, similarly, stole customers from other, already developed, retail centers and all of these virtually killed downtown.
The Pittsburgh Mills shuttered much of Natrona, but is, itself, in danger of collapse.
Most of these projects were built using Tax Increment Financing whereby property taxes are waived in order to allow the deferred taxes to be used for infrastructure improvements. The National Education Association did a study showing that in states like Pennsylvania, because of the way that school districts are funded, TIFs actually HURT the school districts which is why it was comical to see School Board Superintendants lobbying County Council for TIF status when their own organization was advising against it.
Sure, these new places are, in some cases, exciting. But at what cost are we allowing development to go unchecked?
The best answer is private investment. It is getting to get deep pocket investors from out of town or locally to believe in Pittsburgh. It is a great city, but there is still too much crap on our riverfronts not too far from the center city. The Strip/Lawrenceville riverfront is really the key to this total transformation due to it's size, visual prominence, and connection to Downtown. It would be great to have people staying Downtown spill into the Strip more so than they currently do. Buncher needs to start developing it's property in the Lower Strip. This will be an extension of Downtown. Once this starts, development will creep up Smallman, Penn, Liberty to Butler and Lawrenceville. I will not support any plans that will compromise the way the market of Penn Avenue is currently. That is a real treasure to have a place like that. Maybe those Chinese investors that Luke Ravenstahl had in town a couple weeks ago will develop a couple hundred acres of brownfield. Hopefully Pittsburgh will boom after the recession and we will see widespread development.
Private investment is what got us into this mess. The Buncher family (and other real estate speculators), have little incentive to develop property when the government is competing against them by funding such things as the Waterfront and the South Side Works.
Further, because taxes on undeveloped property are so low, they can hold onto acres and acres doing nothing at practically no cost to them, waiting for the value of the property to rise.
The Pittsburgh Renaissance occured because the (then) Mayor was smart enough to understand that to stimulate development, you need to tax UNDEVELOPED property at a higher proportional rate than developed property. The result was a decoupling of the land value from the building value with the emphasis on land value. It was incrementally not more expensive to develop a property than sit on it. Sadly, this exists no more.
A decade or so ago, the city wanted to develop some Buncher property. The tax value of the land, at that time, was $400,000. The city offered the Bunchers $800,000 which they refused. Instead, they countered with an offer of $2.4 million. If the Mayor had any guts back then, he would have said that the value of the property (for tax purposes), is the price that you would accept to sell it.
Make taxes based on THAT basis, and you'll see development. Don't expect people to do it out of the goodness of their hearts.
Location: About 10 miles north of Pittsburgh International
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The result has been the cannibalization of established economic entities by new developments which produce no net increases in benefits to the community. The Waterfront took business from Monroeville and Ross Park, as well as Station Square, and the South Side Works pretty much put the nail in the coffin. Cranberry cannibalized Ross Park and Kilbuck was ready to do the same thing with an ill-planned WalMart until the hillside fell down. The Point at Robinson and the shops in North Fayette, similarly, stole customers from other, already developed, retail centers and all of these virtually killed downtown.
The Pittsburgh Mills shuttered much of Natrona, but is, itself, in danger of collapse.
That, in a nutshell, is why I never find anything exciting about any new retail development. Build something industrial. Make some jobs that make something.
There are only a finite number of consumer dollars that are going to be spent, period. (See disclaimer below.) All new retail development does is to change the address where those dollars are spent. It makes me sick to look across the river at the Waterfront, or drive past the Southside Works, and know that those places were once the very heart of the American steel industry, and now they just sell crap that somebody overseas made.
(If you have industry that makes something, and brings dollars in to the regional economy, now the number of consumer dollars increases. Go ahead and build your shopping mall.)
I always wondered why Buncher sat on all of that property for years and years. There are hundreds of acres of primo property that was used for parking. It seemed like they had no incentive to develop it. That apparently has been the case.
I grew up in 9th ward. I used to hop trains up and down the tracks there.. Do you have any idea how much pollution is in the dirt... Look at what they went through in Homestead....It would be real nice though....
Down on the river around 47th street there use to be a little gambling joint/restaurant called The Castaways. It was on a boat...
My grandfather worked on the 40th street bridge when it was built.... There use to be a covered bridge at 43 street before the 40th was built... We use to walk all the way around the ledge on the little service buildings that are on the 40th street bridge.. If you look good at the hill side on east Ohio you can see a few remnants of the civil war jails that were once there. Look between Pig Hill and Chestnut street..
Then there's the 43 rooms under the 40th street bridge.. There are tunnels under Fisk and 40th streets that go into Arsonal park. I've never seen them though. They supposedly started at the old Fritspatrick mansion that use to be were the little homes are in Arsonal place. You can still see one of the gates pillers on the 40th street side by the steps...
I grew up in 9th ward. I used to hop trains up and down the tracks there.. Do you have any idea how much pollution is in the dirt... Look at what they went through in Homestead....It would be real nice though....
Down on the river around 47th street there use to be a little gambling joint/restaurant called The Castaways. It was on a boat...
My grandfather worked on the 40th street bridge when it was built.... There use to be a covered bridge at 43 street before the 40th was built... We use to walk all the way around the ledge on the little service buildings that are on the 40th street bridge.. If you look good at the hill side on east Ohio you can see a few remnants of the civil war jails that were once there. Look between Pig Hill and Chestnut street..
Then there's the 43 rooms under the 40th street bridge.. There are tunnels under Fisk and 40th streets that go into Arsonal park...
Good Stuff Pitts 64. I know on East Ohio there are a bunch of foundations from old buildings dating back from the mid 1800s. These will all be gone when they widen 28 in a few years. I also remember the stench from Herrs Island as a kid from the slaughterhouse. There used to be Tarzan swings in Lawrenceville that swung into the river, according to my dad, who was from Garfield, but had a lot of friends in Lawrenceville.
I miss the old swing under the bridge.. There use to be a golf course up in Garfield. That was so beautiful up there at one time... I'll bet your dads Irish...
Yes he is Irish. He used to caddy at the Stanton Heights Country Club as a teen. That is the golf course that you are talking about. Garfield used to be poor to middle class Irish.
the latest riverfront development i have seen on that stretch of allegheny is a giant parking lot with brightlights and a few measly trees.. its the new shuttle pick up area for employees of the new childrens hospital.. the parking lot hugs the shore of the river with an eight foot chainlink fence. it is basically a brightly lit eyesore at night. Not even a slight degree of thought there .. Its unfortunate that a sattelite of the decidedly awesome children hospital is so uninspired. wheres all the color!!!!
Good Stuff Pitts 64. I know on East Ohio there are a bunch of foundations from old buildings dating back from the mid 1800s. These will all be gone when they widen 28 in a few years. I also remember the stench from Herrs Island as a kid from the slaughterhouse. There used to be Tarzan swings in Lawrenceville that swung into the river, according to my dad, who was from Garfield, but had a lot of friends in Lawrenceville.
I also grew up in Lawrenvecille and remember the "smell" of Herrs Island slaughterhouse. There indeed was a bull-rope under the 40th St. bridge and me and my buddies used to swing off it and experience a true RUSH when letting go to drop into the Allegheny! WE fished for carp & catfish all along the bank from the bridge towards 10th Ward. Great memories. Lawrenceville was a tough place to grow up in but a good place in hindsight. The mills were going strong(Heppenstals) and people had money. I would love to see something good happen to Da Ville.................it will however take A LONG time.
Speaking of Lawrenceville, there has been a lot of new facades and cool new businesses around 3400 to 3600 block of Butler. I just hope that soon we will see some of those boarded up buildings at Doughboy Square renovated. The immediate buildings across from the square on both Penn and Butler are dilapidated. This could be a beautiful new area and be a real key in the connection to Lawrenceville, The Strip and Downtown. One building was being used a jitney stand, one was a nuisance bar that has been closed. On the other side is the long vacant Wilson's BBQ. Beside Wilson's is a long closed security firm. Lawrenceville is currently the most important neighborhood for Pittsburgh's transformation in the next ten years. It is such a large neighborhood that it has taken longer to transform. With the new Children's Hospital moving up on the hill, more artists and students moving in, plans for the riverfront and industrial sites in initial stages, Lawrenceville will start to rival the South Side.
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