More Proof the Real Estate Market is F@(&ed Up

Just when I thought I wasn't going to have anything to write about tonight that didn't have to do with "improprieties" at Penn State* there's this:

The city Urban Redevelopment Authority board will vote Thursday on a recommendation to enter into exclusive negotiations with PMC Property Group for the acquisition and redevelopment of the John P. Robin Civic Building at 200 Ross St.

PMC is proposing to convert the building, which houses City of Pittsburgh, URA, and city housing authority offices, into 100 residential units plus possible first-floor commercial space. It is offering $1 million for the building.

I've been in that building once or twice in my local government career and I can say without fear of contradiction that it is the third or fourth worst government building in the City. I can only assume that PMC is shorting asbestos in an attempt to corner the Mesothelioma market.

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*There was no way I was going to be able to make that funny.

Urban Development Thoughts

When the East Mall Apartments in East Liberty were finally scheduled for demolition, the location community organization ELDI held a street party in which the much maligned apartments were shot with paint balloons launched from giant slingshots. For years the building that straddled Penn Avenue was looked at, not only as substandard housing, but a physical barrier between Garfield and East Liberty. Still, for some, it was home.

When the Mellon (née Civic) Arena was finally made obsolete, a local architect and preservationist proposed the saving of the structure as a park and a public space. For years the building that straddled what was left of Wylie Avenue was looked at, not only as a failed attempt at urban development, but a physical barrier between Downtown and the Hill District. Still for some, it was (at one point) the site of their homes.

If someone was really clever here, they'd point out the strange parallels between the two stories with regards to neighborhood interests, the interest of the development elite, and the role of architecture reflecting differing urban narratives between the two interests.

If someone was really clever, that is.

On Vacant Land and Demolition

Chris Briem inadvertently tied a couple things together for me the other morning.

First, there's this article from the P-G, which Monsieur Briem references, regarding the hazards of landslides to property owners in the City.

Second, there's another "woe is us" themed article from the Trib, continuing the Scaife Leviathan's mantra of "We suck," making me once again wonder if Maggie Scaife got all the Xanax in the divorce.

Third, there's this (frequently misunderstood) article from the Daily Telegraph about the impending demolition of Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. Well, not really, but that's the way that people are reading what could really be called a "managed downsizing."

What basically ties the whole thing together is that, yes, at one point Pittsburgh had 600,000 people within its borders. In order to accommodate a population of that magnitude, one surmises, residents must have been stacked like cordwood. Indeed, if you look at the housing stock up and down the Mon Valley, from the Southside Slopes through to Duquesne, you will see that, yes, people were, in fact, stacked like cordwood with houses built in places that no sane engineer would ever dare to put them.

Of course, the particularly nasty housing stock was not for the upper or even middle management, but rather for the poor shlubs who worked down the mills. Even by the standards of the day I'm sure that these homes would be considered "less than modest," to underplay the term quite significantly.

So, it doesn't really surprise me that Pittsburgh has a huge mass of housing, built in places that it shouldn't really be, with densities that are unbearable by today's standards, and with building and amenity qualities that do not meat the needs of today's consumer.

What's different between Pittsburgh and Detroit when talking about the demolitions in the third article above is that when we demolish a building in the City, they can be absorbed into the hillsides or be relatively unobtrusive in our topographically separated neighborhoods. In flat Detroit, however, demolitions are not interrupted by hills and valleys, and it leaves behind a very noticeable scare on the urban landscape.

And then, for Pittsburgh we have the added advantage that comes with not building anything else on a hillside: Wal*Mart doesn't fall onto Route 28.

But I digress.

As Chris shows, a properly targeted vacant land strategy can actually increase the value of the remaining properties and make the City a better (if less dense) place to live.

Ravenstahl, Reilly, and Smith Each Claim Credit for Destruction of Penn Circle High Rise

Each claims their individual focused mental energies released the psychic forms within the building, inverting its chi, ridding it of toxins, allowing it to disassemble and move Pittsburgh forward.

Contractors claim it was explosives and gravity.

An Architectural Aside

Cheers and Jeers on the Pittsburgh architectural and urban design front this week:

First, a big Cheer for the folks at PennDOT for their work on the Boulevard of the Allies bridge project. One of the things that I liked about the old bridge (other than the thrill that it may collapse at any moment) were the four concrete eagle medallions that graced the corners of the bridge. It was a nice little neo-classical public art detail from back in the early part of the last century. The eagles, however, had suffered from the ravages of time, and it appeared that a little bit of decoration to the bridge would be lost.

The folks at PennDOT, thankfully, have installed new eagles on the bridge piers of an even greater scale, still echoing the grandness of the original. If you drive up from Forbes Avenue from the Parkway, you can see these colossal additions to the project. It's a great touch that brings a good shot of public art to an otherwise dreary public works project.

A big Jeer, however, to the folks at Walnut Capital for their "Walnut Place" project at the corner of Browns Hill Road and Old Browns Hill Road. The new development is frankly the same kind of strip mall abortion that we've seen everywhere in this country: devoid of any real attempt at good planning and subservient to the automobile. Now, usually this kind of development would be ignored, but considering that it will be located on the Homestead Grays Briged side entrance to Summerset at Frick Park (a development that the City has gotten great kudos on for its attempts in creating a new Urbanist Community), you would have thought that the folks at the Planning Commission would have advised them to build something a bit... uh... less like somebody vomited shit onto a set of blueprints.

(Now, I'm not saying that there's any connection that City Planning Commissioner Todd Reidbord also happens to be the part owner of Walnut Capital, but...)

So well done for advancing the cause of mediocrity, Todd, but a big jeer from us.

Déjà Vu Squared

They say those that don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership this morning announced a $5 million plan to remake Market Square into a more pedestrian-friendly area with less traffic and wider sidewalks to encourage more outdoor dining.

The design, which was unveiled at the partnership's annual meeting, will stop all through traffic on Forbes Avenue, eliminate all bus traffic and send cars around the perimeter of the square. Instead of raised planters that are the centerpieces of the four quadrants of the square, the site will become a level area with trees, tables and a decorative stone surface.

This all seems strangely familiar to me... almost as if there was a place in the City of Pittsburgh that tried to do this whole walkable pedestrian area thing before to great acclaim and with rapturous applause, only to see said neighborhood collapse, necessitating massive redevelopment efforts 30-40 years in the future, nearly completely reversing the original plan.


Of course, Market Square isn't East Liberty, nor is Allegheny Center, so I'm sure that there will be plenty of other new and creative ways someone can mess this all up. Again.

3-2-1 Contracts

Saw this in the Trib, which a couple people are commenting on. Let me pull out something a bit disingenuous from Jeremy Boren:

Matthew McTish, president of the company that bears his surname, gave $10,000 to Ravenstahl's campaign in December 2006. It is one the few five-digit contributions the mayor received between September 2006 and December 2007, the latest campaign records available.

Six Wilbur Smith executives, including company president Hollis Walker Jr., gave Ravenstahl a combined $7,500 between January and October last year, the records show. Wilbur Smith won three engineering consultant contracts worth $1.12 million in 2007.

The folks over at 414 Grant Street go a little further:

The head of the engineering firm McTish, Kunkel & Associates that, according to yesterday's Tribune Review article, won a URA bid for work at the Technology Center after being the highest bidder gave a $1,000 campaign contribution to URA Board Member and PA State Senator Jim Ferlo on March 9, 2008. It should also be noted that Senator Ferlo also happens to be URA Board Chairman Yarone Zober's former boss.

Of course, no mention is made of Trumbull's contributions to anyone... probably because they slyly run their contribution through their own political action committee, TC PAC... and, of course, that PAC gave generously to CAPAC (Constructors Association PAC), along with such names you might recognize like Ferlo, DeWeese, Roddey, Frankel, Stevenson, Orie, Wheatley, etc.

So, without delving into more specific records, I find it hard to believe that somehow Trumbull missed the payment on their yearly bribe to the Ravenstahl Administration and was, therefore, "disqualified" from the bid in question. There's plenty of money floating around, so this is just a red herring.*

The other error, speaking as a Bureaucrat, is that the general public somehow erroneously believes that contracts should go to the lowest bidder. That's just plain stupid.

Contracts are supposed to go to the lowest responsible bidder, to use the jargon. *I* could have bid on this contract and I could have said that I could have done it for $1, but only an idiot would have accepted my bid, based on the fact that I have little or no experience in road paving, utility line relocation, or landscaping. The result would have been me out in the middle of Second Avenue with a pick axe and a shovel, trying to avoid the on-coming traffic. I would not have been a responsible bidder.

Still, there's more than just experience.

Some of you may recall back in the 90s when Sala Udin tried to mandate that a certain percentage of work that was done with City money be given to contractors from the City of Pittsburgh. While that decision was defeated, if it had passed, the above referenced contract would have had to have gone to the contractor (all other things being equal) to the contractor that was from the City. If two of the contractors had no representation from the City whatsoever, the URA would have had to have given the contract to the remaining contractor, even if the cost was higher. Again, those who fail to meet this threshold would not have been a responsible bidder.

Finally, Zober, insisting that the URA move away from using the same firms repeatedly, shows, what I would consider, a lack of knowledge regarding the practicalities of public bids. The public bid process, of course, requires some initial effort on the part of the bidder; there is always an up front hurdle in getting your foot in the door. Once you go through the public process, as it is with nearly any process, you know what to expect for next time and you can refine your proposal so that you do better next time.

Of course, if you either (a) decide that this is too much work or (b) repeatedly can't make the grade, you'll probably give up, leaving the contracts to folks who are willing to work through the process and fulfill the qualifications of a responsible bid. Success, in this case, begets success... unless Zober is comfortable with using failure.

I appreciate Mr. Boren, et. al.'s attempt at controversy, but sadly, I think there's less going on here than meets the eye.

Sort of like a reverse Transformer.

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* Like Communism, Mr. Green.

And While We're On the Subject of Parking

Just a brief thought experiment:

With the increase in gas prices, concern about the viability of foreign oil, and a collapsing housing market, one may suppose that there would be a return to denser, transit oriented development. If that happens, one of the first casualties, in my mind would be the parking garage.

The parking garage is a very specialized structure, serving exactly one purpose: to house automobiles while we're not driving them. They are usually very large structures, built of concrete, steal, and the occasional LED billboard, but all have the same function.

Now, I'm not suggesting that parking garages are suddenly going to be empty; the American desire to be a V-8 cowboy will probably never completely go away. I am suggesting, however, that if fewer people drive on a regular basis, operating parking garages becomes less profitable.

The result are old derelict structures, empty and taking up space. (Which, to be fair, is pretty much what most of the garages downtown look like anyway.)

So my questions are these: Are architects planning for the whole life cycle of these structures, i.e., what do they become after they fulfill their useful life? What do we do with the ones we may have coming up in the future? Can they become homes? Office buildings? Urban Farms? Or are we just going to end up with big ol' piles of rubble?

My mind flashes back to a probably apocryphal story about why the halls in the old buildings of Carnegie Mellon are sloped: if Tech failed as a school, Carnegie was planning to turn the buildings into workshops.

Do we have such foresight?

I'm All For Intermodal Transit, but *What*?

Saw this in the Trib:

The Allegheny County Airport Authority board Friday approved opening up Pittsburgh International Airport to a Montour Trail extension.

The trail will be extended six miles from Enlow Road in Imperial to the airside terminal, allowing cycling enthusiasts who want to fly in or out of Pittsburgh direct access to the trail.

And I can't help but think that this is the silliest transit oriented decision made in the region since they built the Port-Authority parking garage next to the free lot down at South Hills Village.

There are a couple of things that I can't figure out here:

(1) Who exactly are they expecting to bike all the way to the airport, lock up their bike, and get on a plane? Are these bikers that have already contacted Hertz for a rent-a-bike in Philadelphia or Cleveland? Surely, these aren't travelers that are going on an extended stay, otherwise they'd have luggage and, as they were traveling down the trail, would look something like this:
And if you thought sitting next to the fat guy on the plane was bad, just think about how bad its going to be sitting next to the sweaty guy who just biked in from Coraopolis.

(2) OK, perhaps the trail extension isn't for travelers. Perhaps it's for the Saturday leisure bikers who think "Gee, you know what would be a great way to spend the Weekend? Biking six miles to the airport and getting frisked by the TSA. That way the bicycle seats won't be what's hurting your ass on the way back!" Yeah, that's fun!*

It sounds like someone at the Airport Authority had a bunch of money to blow through and decided that the best way to spend it without getting fired for gross incompetence was to blow it on some funky, urban amenity that no one is really going to use.

If that was the case, they should have just put up a vegetarian coffee house and poetry reading corner in the middle of the runway.

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* My guess is that anyone who uses this trail will be immediately put on the No-Fly list by the TSA, because, seriously, anyone who thinks this is a good idea is obviously mentally deranged and, therefore, is a treat to our national security.

Thinking Outside the Square

While we're on the subject of Urban Planning, I also happened to catch the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership's plans for Market Square today. You can see the plans here.

Your choices, apparently, are Minimal, Oasis, and Historic... all of which bring to mind scented candles that I have thrown away in years past.

All of these designs, however, share the same problem: Market Square is not a square, and no, I don't mean that in trivial technical sense that it's a rectangle.

For all intents and purposes, Market Square is now essentially part of a pedestrian mall that stretches from Fifth Avenue all the way to the Tomb of the Unknown Bowler in PPG place. In fact, once the proposed PNC park (small "p" in park) is built next to that new sky scraper, people will have a nearly unobstructed view all the way from the waterfall behind Heinz Hall to Mt. Washington.

That's kind of neat, actually, but all three plans do not deal with the longitudinal axis of what is essentially a long public space and how these three individual urban rooms address one another.

But that's just an amateur opinion and all...

Master (Planning)s of the Universe (-ity)

It is with heady anticipation that I opened my media kit from Point Park University to see what the architectural wizards over at WTW Architects came up with. Over all, it's not a bad plan for an "academic village" which includes the acquisition of the existing YMCA building, acquisition of several more properties along Forbes Avenue (across the street from the Piatt development), and a mess of public improvements to the streets, sidewalks, and trees.

Now, I've seen more than my fair share of institutional Master Plans, and frankly it is rare that any of them actually come completely to fruition. It is always more likely that bits and pieces of these plans are realized as the first shot is usually exceptionally pretty, but short on practicalities. Indeed, there are some hurdles to overcome in this one too.

The big question, of course, is what this all means to the future of Downtown. With the Government/Corporate corridor to the East and the Cultural District to the North, there is a real chance here to fill in that big, vacant hole in the middle of Downtown.

Setting the built environment aside, however, there is the proposition that Universities can be economic development engines. This seems more true, however, for schools like Pitt and CMU that can churn out spinoffs in Biotech and IT, rather than PPU which can churn out Liberal Arts majors.

Not that there's anything wrong with Liberal Arts majors -- some of my favorite baristas have degrees in Native American Literature or Political Philosophy -- but can a horde of conservatory and media studies students be a motor for economic development downtown? Well, surely for necessities, amenities and some residential, but can the University attract industrial clusters that build on regional assets and help to generate sustainable job growth? I honestly don't know the answer to that question.

Moving on: from the City's side, there's still no confirmation that there is any public support coming to this project. That may be a detail, however, as it might be simply a matter of undertaking public improvements in tandem with the University's plans. Or, it could be an upgrade that the University might want to contract with the City on.

The funny thing is, however, that PPU is, as all not-for-profits are around here, tax exempt. Physical improvements to properties will raise the value of the buildings, but will not raise additional tax revenue for the City. This becomes a more pressing issue for the properties around Fifth & Forbes, which seem to account for at least a couple parcels of the Master Plan, and for which the City and its affiliates paid a good chunk of change. The expectation, of course, is that these properties were eventually to be returned to productive (i.e. taxpaying) use. Should PPU be looking at snagging some of these sites, one has to question the rationale of picking up these properties in the first place.

Or maybe we're past that point already.

So mixed bag all around, I suppose... but at least they had the good sense to put the Student Union two doors down from the all night, XXX peep show place. THAT'S good planning right there.

Gold (Energy) Star to the URA

There's an interesting article buried in the back of the City Paper, which I'm surprised hasn't attracted more attention from the more mainstream print media:

Residential construction financed by the Urban Redevelopment Authority must now meet certain federal energy-saving standards...

The URA is asking developers to meet the standards of the Energy Star program, a joint federal effort by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy to establish standards of energy efficiency in products and buildings...

Right now there are 226 Energy Star-qualified homes in Pittsburgh and the surrounding suburbs, according to the EPA's Jon Passe. Of those, 180 were built in 2007.

[URA sustainable-design coordinator Matt] Smuts says that the URA provided funding to the construction of 50 stand-alone houses and between 300 and 600 multi-family units, apartments or attached condos in 2007...

This seems to be a really big deal to me, and I can't decide if the URA is being uncharacteristically progressive in its thinking or if the tide of energy conservation has fully engulfed even the most stalwart of conservative institutions in Pittsburgh. [Or perhaps everyone is just sick of paying $800 gas bills.]

In any case, this may be one of those things that really puts Pittsburgh on the map in terms of Green Design and development. Already there are architects, schools, supporting institutions, foundations, and contractors in the region that are starting to specialize in this type of work. The added weight of the URA, as both a governmental and funding organization, will give a terrific boost to the industry, making energy efficient homes more than just commonplace in Pittsburgh. Could it be possible that the Region is on the verge of developing its own self-sustaining environmental industry cluster?

Moreover, if the URA is helping to producing 650 houses/apartments a year and all of them will have to be Energy Star compliant, that will triple the number of Energy Star Homes in the City within the first year.

More importantly, however, with mortgage prices completely out of whack, it only makes sense for homeowners to reduce the cost of their energy usage in order to minimize their risk of default or foreclosure. This is particularly necessary for areas where there is need for more affordable housing.

So kudos all around, I suppose.

Ann Arbor Urban Development

Found an interesting article out of Ann Arbor, Michigan (City Motto: "Gateway to Washtenaw County"), in which the City Council rejected plans from two developers following resident complaints and now a City Council member wants to make consulting with neighbors more than a recommendation for developers: :

[City Council Member Sabra] Briere's proposal would require developers to notify any residents within 1,000 feet of a project. That would mean providing a complete description of the project as well as information about how to express concerns about it. The petitioner would then provide a report at least seven days prior to a Planning Commission public hearing.

The report would list all the details of meetings that were held and concerns expressed by residents. The developer would list what steps would be taken to address residents' concerns. If developers aren't willing to address some concerns, they would have to explain why.

It's an interesting theory, and one that plays into the goings on in the Hill District/Northshore. While this may be seen as a big headache and cost for developers upfront, it may pay dividends in the long run. As one of the interviewees in the article states, "Realistically, the developer is going to have to [engage the community] ahead of time or play catch-up afterwards."

It is important to note that the Ann Arbor proposal does not bind the developers to addressing the needs of the neighborhood, but rather it documents the process of engaging the residents. There will, of course, be times that community demands are unrealistic (cf. rainbow farting unicorns), but the developer will have an opportunity to explain why such demands are unreasonable or overly burdensome to the project.

Triumph des Suburbs

Johathan Potts has a posting on Joel Kotkin's article in the Washington Post about the Triumph of the Suburbs over the City. Worth a read and certainly filled with just enough vitriol to make Urban Economic Development Practitioners happy.

An extension of his post, is that cities are not as "doomed" as we think. The major advantage that cities have is a network of pre-existing infrastructure and services that can be provided/used with a minimal cost to the developer/business person.

Moreover, in the long run, the net present value to suburbs for this development is probably negative, with increased burdens on their existing infrastructure and services. Development of, say, a mall in a corn field, necessitates increased water/sewage containment and flow control, increased security, increased fire protection, remediation of other externalities, code enforcement, etc. Urban Areas, in the long run, already have infrastructure set up to deal with these things, while suburban areas do not. Problem for the Cities is that suburban areas have a lower up-front cost. [We can talk more later about governmental subsidies to lower the barriers to entry for Urban development.]

Even further and referenced in the Kotkin article, just because we now have an ability to telecommute, that does not necessarily mean that we can live out in the middle of nowhere... which is why Gateway Computers doesn't live in Sioux City Iowa anymore. There is a competitive advantage to the urban environment based on a need to be "where the action is".

But we can also discuss Michael Porter and Cluster Development strategies later.

Point is: Cities not doomed, unless of course Federal CDBG funding is cut. Oh...

Design v. Reality

Interesting article in the PG about Sara Moore from the River Life Task Force. It talks a bit about the design problems with the City of Pittsburgh and about plans to revitalize the City's waterfront. Paragraph #3, however, hit me like a ton of bricks:

Sure, there are stumbling blocks, such as private owners who haven't yet relinquished the rights to redevelop their waterfront parcels.

Which is developer-speak for "We got nuthin'."

Architects like to say "Form follows Function." The Developer counters that "Form follows Money."

Honestly, all the good design in the world isn't worth a damn if you don't have the cash to pay for it.

Sorry, cynicism caught up with me there.

Oh My O'Malley

Martin O'Malley raised a few eyebrows the other day when he likened Bush's axing of CDBG funding to Metropolitan Areas to the attacks of September 11th. This caused Democrats to be "abashed" and Republicans to be "appalled".

O'Malley great sin: forgetting that the memory September 11th can never be used except for jingoistic reasons. [Cf. Afghanistan, Iraq, Tax Cuts, Budget Cuts, Homeland Security, Patriot Act, etc.]

Doesn't O'Malley realize that as part of this War on Terrah, him and his commie, liberal, hippie, latte-drinking, pot-smoking, homosexual, tree-hugging, welfare pimp buddies are traitors to this country? I mean really!

O'Malley has some nerve, suggesting that the strengthening of America's inner cities is somehow related the strengthening of the Country as a whole and that an attack on the Cities is an attack on the Country.

Sheesh!

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This post brought to you by: Federal CDBG Funding