Monday, June 4, 2012

Monday: Craven, Growth-Choking and Out-of-Control


The P-G would like Buncherland to turn out "attractive and well-designed."

We already assume all new architecture will be scrupulously cost-engineered to be squat, featureless, rectangular and modular, constructed from faux-sandstone, vinyl and Plexiglas -- giving new life to the phrase, "They don't make things like they used to." It's either that or build nothing new, ever.

I just confess a real ignorance as to how the housing market works. Given that our city is about half-vacant and with seriously high-quality housing stock, most of which is available at ridiculously low rents and prices, how is it that Buncher Company sees a market for 750 new residential units on this stretch of river? Is it that younger upwardly-mobile types desire to club together to show off their wealth, education and freshness on a fresh new campus? At the expense of having a backyard of their own, and a park you can lose yourself in with real trails nearby? Are these for people who aren't planning on staying very long? If so, will the freshness keep to attract replacement generations? And is there enough of this market to sustain alongside the North Shore Apartments, the Heinz Lofts, the Cork Factory, Bakery Square 2.0, Piatt Place and Whatever's Going Into Penguinsland?

It all seems so gossamer. Maybe somebody can explain it. Do we really, honestly have enough yuppies to make it all work?

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The Allegheny Institute points out some ironies (I think that's the word) involving a bank moving back into "the Lord and Taylor building." One certainly must credit PNC Bank for helping to inflate Pittsburgh's disposable wealth coefficient -- remember, they haven't even begun constructing that green exclamatory tower yet. Somebody asked me recently -- don't they have a lot of unused office space already in Allegheny Center Mall? Will we be demolishing that soon to restore the Federal Street grid with solar-powered bulldozers, even as we construct a new skyscraper Downtown with cranes that run on vegetable oil? And what will replace the improvidently designed mall -- upscale mixed-use housing?

Meanwhile, Early Returns sees evidence that Mayor Ravenstahl was right about our city drilling ban having a negative effect on Downtown real estate -- heeding Oxford Development Co.'s desire to maybe build a new skyscraper, but maybe not, because ugh, drilling ban.

Of course, there's always a downside.

Null Space points us in the direction of Cleveland's conceptualizing of regionalism as a services buffet.

Are all three or four branches of state government (depending upon how you care to count) firmly in Republican hands? Is the potentially pivotal race for Attorney General barely on the radar screen? Ladies and gentlemen, PoliticsPA gives you Prettygate.

For all the talk about the Gates, Heinz, Grable and Pittsburgh foundations, the outfit that really seems to stick in the PURE Reform community's craw for whatever reason is the Broad Foundation.

Tomorrow, one key battle in the epic interstellar war between austere conservatism and organized labor will finally be decided in Wisconsin, at the ballot box, by ordinary people feeling somewhere in the middle and believing both sides to be making sound points. It's close, of course. UPDATE: Maybe not that close.

19 comments:

  1. There was about a 12,500 person increase in the City's 20-29 population from 2000 to 2010. Given recent data regarding the City's labor force, it is likely this trend is, if anything, accelerating. Not surprisingly given these ongoing trends, apartment vacancies in the nicer, more convenient City neighborhoods are incredibly low, and nicer new units in particular tend to have waiting lists.

    So is the City adding enough new "yuppies" to absorb 750 higher-end apartment units? Yes. And a bunch more Downtown, in the former Civic Arena site, East Liberty, Uptown, and so on? Also yes.

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  2. Some of those people are probably living in dorms, but I've heard tell of people who were upwards of 33 or 34 and wanted live in a place where there was no need to mow or paint or fix your own sink.

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  3. Pittsburgh has lots of vacant housing, lots of cheap housing, and lots of great housing but really very little if you want even two of those three qualities.

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  4. Location, location, location. Pick two.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Great stuff about fracking. Not sure why Briem is backing the mayor on this one when he's usually so impartial and non-committal in his postings.

    Re: Buncherland. Don't forget Summerset at Frick Park in your round-up of competing new housing. The development is moving full speed ahead on its second phase, which includes apartments, townhouses and detached housing, and phase three, across Nine Mile Run in Swisshelm Park, is on the horizon. All of these projects compete for bank and public funding. So who has more juice--Buncher, Rubinoff, Walnut Capital, CBRE, David Morehouse?

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  7. I didn't know there was a phrase three coming. Maybe it should be called East Duck Hollow instead of Upper Duck Hollow.

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  8. Let me be clear. I think it's possible Oxford is pretending to be having a hard time lining up tenants for its alleged plans for a whole new office building, in order to support Ravenstahl and to support the energy sector and "drill baby drill" more generally.

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  9. The Estates at Duck Hollow Reserve on the Mount?

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  10. no there aren't enough yuppies to support more new residential development. we have great old pittsburgh homes in neighborhoods that aren't that far gone to think that rehabbing them is out of the question. why is this administration paying zero attention to saving the homes we already have? here's a super neat campaign idea luke - assuming you're still a renter, why don't you plop your self down in one of our needy neighborhoods. set an example. i'll bet lots of people would want to live where the mayor lives (even if it's not on the very edge of the city).

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  11. I am unclear how/why I was invoked?

    and I thought it was decided: Duck Hollow Heights.

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  12. I forgot the exact formulation.

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  13. I like your smart-ass remark/dream about knocking down that pile of excrement on the North Side, Allegheny Center Mall. It is the architectural equivalent of a blank stare, and has all the urban planning vision of a Jersey barrier, especially for people approaching the North Side from the city. When will Pittsburgh do what the rest of American cities have done with their 60s-era urban redevelopment fantasies: apologize and knock them down?

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  14. I'm actually somehow under the impression that Allegheny Center really IS being situated towards the wrecking ball. Although we'd probably need a developer in place at the outset to make the $$ work. You don't often hear about blank slate land opening up with jump ball / open auction development rights status...

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  15. A young professional new to the City doesn't necessarily want to buy a large old home in need of serious work.

    Fortunately, these are complementary ideas. That young professional will eventually become an older professional, perhaps get married, look to start a family, and so forth. Many such people will move to the suburbs, but not necessarily all of the them, and the ones that want to stay may consider a renovation project.

    So the more young professionals you are attracting on the front end, the more older professionals you may get renovating on the back end--not one-to-one, but as a ratio of some sort.

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  16. Yeah, BrianTH, I'm basically converted that this kind of development is still really genuinely beneficial to the city's fortunes... The only devils which may exist being in the details.

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  17. The caveat I would introduce is that it is best if you can add new housing units without tearing down historic and still useful structures (so, no, the Arena doesn't count). Fortunately, residential units can go into a lot of older structures, and in general we have a lot of underutilized buildings and lots.

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  18. Speaking of new housing units, I know of a few recently retiring couples who moved into a new city condo after a life in the suburbs. With the abatement and no wage income, Pittsburgh becomes a low cost place to retire. If you don't want to spend your immediate pre-dotage years maintaining a house far too big for two people and shoveling snow, a new condo is perfect.

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