Mon Valley in 10 years? (Homestead, Coal Center: 2013, houses, college)

[MountainDewGuy]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

The Waterfront does a fair amount for the people of Homestead.

It provides the people there with an opportunity for shopping for basic stuff that they didn't have before, it provides jobs and tax dollars to the local schools and municipal governments.


In Homestead, unless you were inclined to move the railroad tracks, the physical separation between the Waterfront and the rest of town was going to remain. South Side Works didn't have the same rail configuration, J&L was a lot smaller on the South Side. Further, Homestead's Waterfront has the Lowe's, Giant Eagle, Target, a lot of basic stores that you really don't have on the South Side mill site.

It seems to me like they purposely bottlenecked the entry/exit points on each end of the Waterfront to make it inconvenient for folks to easily walk there. If they wanted to integrate the development with the town, a more centeral grand entrance could have been built.

[doo dah]

Originally Posted by MountainDewGuy

It seems to me like they purposely bottlenecked the entry/exit points on each end of the Waterfront to make it inconvenient for folks to easily walk there. If they wanted to integrate the development with the town, a more centeral grand entrance could have been built.

It looks to me like there is only one place to walk in, at Amity Street? There aren't any steps from the bridge?

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by MountainDewGuy

It seems to me like they purposely bottlenecked the entry/exit points on each end of the Waterfront to make it inconvenient for folks to easily walk there. If they wanted to integrate the development with the town, a more centeral grand entrance could have been built.

The railroad may not have granted any other right of way.

Being nearly in the center of town I would put the entrance as walkable as any other & is easily accessible on foot with sidewalks the whole way.

[doo dah]

Originally Posted by UKyank

The railroad may not have granted any other right of way.

Being nearly in the center of town I would put the entrance as walkable as any other & is easily accessible on foot with sidewalks the whole way.

Oh, yes, aside from the vast expanses of parking lots and sidewalks that end randomly.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by doo dah

Oh, yes, aside from the vast expanses of parking lots and sidewalks that end randomly.

The parking lots are obviously a necessity given the nature of the development as for randomly ending sidewalk I've not noticed any of these.

Either way, looking for a nefarious reason for it only having one pedestrian entrance by the developers seems a stretch.

[doo dah]

Originally Posted by UKyank

The parking lots are obviously a necessity given the nature of the development as for randomly ending sidewalk I've not noticed any of these.

Either way, looking for a nefarious reason for it only having one pedestrian entrance by the developers seems a stretch.

Nefarious? It is simply not pedestrian friendly, especially for those people who "could" walk from 8th Avenue.
I have walked from the bus stop near the theater to Dick's, and yes, the sidewalk stops and the walker has to cross the parking lots. Sometimes the sidewalk takes one around to the back of the stores. Then stops. It was frustrating and unpleasant.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by doo dah

Nefarious?

Sorry, that part wasn't directed at you - but every time the topic of the waterfront comes up there are always a few people that imply that it is purposely separated from homestead so as to keep the residents of homestead out.

[selltheburgh]

Originally Posted by robrobrob

I think you are mistaken about housing prices a decade ago in the city.

My wife and I looked at houses (with a realtor) in most of the East End Neighborhoods 15 years ago and you couldn't get a house in Highland Park, Shadyside or Squirrel Hill for under 100,000. In Shadyside the best we could find was a two room condo for 70K with a room on each floor and a spiral staircase with a kitchen tucked underneath it. Squirrel Hill was just as bad. We looked at a rowhouse/townhouse on Wilkins for 180,000 with no parking. We also looked at a rowhouse/townhouse on Shady that was a total gut for 150,000. In Highland Park we looked at a house that had 30 steps and hadn't been touched since the 1930's for 150,000. We didn't look at the stuff on the East Liberty/Highland Park border because 15 years ago it was basically a ghetto. Forget about the city section of Regent Square. There was nothing there in our price range. A friend looked at a house there 20 years ago for 130,000 and it was fixer that backed up to the alley that ran behind Murphy's Tap Room. 11 years ago a friend bought a small house in Friendship for 170,000 and it is a block from Penn.

9 years ago I bought my first house in Highland Park a few blocks from the East Lib border for just over 100k. It sat on the market for almost a year before we bought it and we had to put another 100k into it over the next 6 or 7 years. No parking, but a big brick house. I think there were 2 or 3 others in the same price range then and they were all fixer uppers.

Some areas have gone up a lot, but the quality of the houses have as well. You see less and less houses that are 100% knob and tube combined with 1940's decor, a 30 year old roof and a 40 year old furnace.

People have been updating houses in the East End for the past 10 years. There are less and less houses that haven't been touched in 40+ years and when there are, they are bought with cash by investors who are going to gut them and resell them for top values. Those types of houses are not within the skill set or budgets of first time buyers like SCR.

[PreservationPioneer]

Part of the reason certain neighborhoods command higher home prices over others, aside from the desirability of the location, is the condition and upkeep of the homes. There is a reason the average home price in places like McKeesport and Braddock is so low, aside from the Mon Valley location. Many of the homes sold are complete rehab projects and are priced as such. In more desirable neighborhoods, homes have often been improved to the extent that they command higher prices. Also, in more desirable neighborhoods, owners are less afraid to invest significant money into the upkeep of their homes.

[Bazzwell]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

What do you see as the salvation for towns further from Pittsburgh than McKeesport, if they are too far to be bedroom suburbs? Your Donora and Buena Vista, Monessen, Charleroi and Coal Center?

Coal Center? Have you actually been there? Ever? Coal Center has one salvation, the town is nearly within walking distance of Cal U. A hundred years ago when the mine was open the future was bright indeed. But now all you have is a private boat club, a post office, a college type bar, an 84 Lumber truss plant on the old slag heap site and maybe a few dozen houses. The future for Coal Center stopped in to say howdy for a minute then skipped town just after WW2 when the mine closed. I'm speaking strictly of the town itself, the CC zip covers a wide area of mostly run down patch towns and a lot of country.

Donora.....lived there in the seventies for a year, possibly the most unfriendly town to outsiders I've ever had the great pleasure to leave. That aside, "Doh-No" suffers from being out of the way of almost everything meaningful. It has a few places to work in the way of factories but that's all. It is what it is and I see little hope for change, ever.

Monessen....What industry still there keeps some of the locals employed. Two Monessens really, old Monessen around town that can't possibly fall much farther than it already has over the last 30+ years. Having the Douglas school has helped a bit. Newer Monessen on the hill and outward towards Belle Vernon has pretty much held it's own but you'd be surprised how many people claim a BV address so their kids don't have to go to the Monessen school. No real estate hot spot. I personally know of an out-of-state couple that thought they got a great bargain on an old mansion in town. Beautiful place they bought for pennies on the dollar, spent tens of thousands restoring to original beauty and sold it for (hold your breath here).......pennies on the dollar. Next 50 years? Still the same.

"Shoe-leroi".....managed to hold on quite nicely into the nineties while everything else around them collapsed. But somewhere the bottom finally dropped out and they're hanging on by a gnat's rump to what they have left.


I realize it's bad form to speak ill of the dead but what else can one do? These are all old communities that were built and based around the performance of specific and now nearly extinct industries. My personal feeling is not enough generations have passed to make any real changes in the next few decades. The current mindset still thinks "good times gonna roll again if we plant a few trees down Main and hold a beerfest in town center".