Pittsburgh Homes Daily

Apparently, community leaders around the Baum-Centre Corridor are attempting to get Giant Eagle to put a new shine on a GetGo gas station (discussed in the Tribune-Review). But Giant Eagle’s efforts to create an inviting and innovative gas station convenience store mix aren’t nearly as interesting (since we’ve heard them before) as this comment on the Corridor:

“The Baum-Centre corridor has the potential to be one of the prime real estate areas in the city …,” said Rob Pfaffmann, a local architect.

One of the prime real estate locations in the city? That’s speaking pretty highly of it, since to call it that would have to put it in competition with established and developed Pittsburgh areas Squirrel Hill and Shadyside, popular and hip East Carson St. on the South Side, and up and coming Lawrenceville and the North Side.

Wedged between Oakland, Shadyside, Bloomfield, Friendship and East Liberty, and often visited by nearby Highland Park and Lawrenceville residents passing through, the Baum-Centre corridor certainly has a lot of potential. It’s highly visible and a major thoroughfare in the area. It has access to public transportation. It’s also a logical area to take advantage of the popularity of living in the Shadyside neighborhood.

But at the same time, the area has a lot of work to do to define itself as separate and distinct from the nearby neighborhoods and to establish its value as more than a means of getting from one area of Pittsburgh to the other. I’ve looked at the Baum/Center Corridor Strategy and I don’t yet see the unifying/defining theme that is going to turn the area into prime real estate in the next 5-10 years. Will the area need to seek a major developer to come in and unify development in the corridor similar to what is expected in the Federal North redevelopment or Fifth-Forbes corridor? Or is pursuing a one developer corridor project impossible (politically, financially) to pull off successfully these days such that the only way to go is to hope that individual property owner development can produce more than a bunch of gas stations and fast food restaurants (who doesn’t love Wendy’s?) on every corner. Will nearby residents ever truly consider the Corridor its own neighborhood - or will it always be overshadowed by Shadyside (and hopefully soon East Liberty)?

Of course, planning the development of a neighborhood is a difficult and long term game, and while I’m skeptical of the area’s ability to create its own identity and name as a destination in Pittsburgh, I’m hopeful that it can achieve it.

What are you thoughts on the area? Potential prime real estate in Pittsburgh or just another Pittsburgh redevelopment plan?

The obvious, and perhaps more relevant for most Pittsburgh Homes Daily readers, question that follows from yesterday’s discussion of commercial real estate in Pittsburgh is, “How is the residential real estate market in Pittsburgh fairing?” So I sifted through recent news reports for information about the Pittsburgh housing market and here’s what I found:

PRICE

Realstats reported the average price of a home sold in the Pittsburgh area was up 1.8 percent from July 2007. Washington County was the exception - the average price of a home in Washington County fell significantly, though it was thought to be the result of declining new construction sales rather than a collapse in home valuation.

Online home valuation website Zillow recently released its Zillow Real Estate Market Report for the second quarter April - June 2008. Only one of out ten homes sellers in Pittsburgh sold their home for a loss compared to one in four home sellers nationwide and three out of five sellers in California.

SALES ACTIVITY

The bad news for individuals who need to sell their house in the Pittsburgh market is that fewer homes are selling in the Pittsburgh area. Realstats reported that real estate sales were down 12 percent in July compared to July 2007 - the 17th consecutive month of declining sales. Butler County proved to be the exception - sales in Butler County increased in July.

FORECLOSURES

Pittsburgh ranked 79th out of America’s 100 largest metropolitan areas for the rate of foreclosures in the second quarter - 1 out of every 383 homes in the region were in foreclosure - with foreclosures in greater Pittsburgh up only slightly for the first six months of 2008 compared to 2007. The one troubling signal among the data was that foreclosures in June 2008 in Allegheny County doubled compared to foreclosures in June 2007.

After writing yesterday’s post about Pittsburgh’s economy, I did a quick search of the local newspapers to see how the commercial real estate market was doing in the Pittsburgh region.

Despite concerns around the nation that commercial real estate will follow the downtrend in the nation’s residential housing market, and the postponement of the downtown housing project in Pittsburgh’s Theater District, Riverparc, Pittsburgh’s commercial real estate market has had some pretty good news lately.

Over the past year, the vacancy rate is down from 20 percent to 18 percent, UPMC located itself at the U.S. Steel Tower, Siemens Engineering signed at the Union Trust Building, BNY Mellon plans to add about 2,000 employees to its downtown locations, and there is now a report of a tentative agreement for the sale of law firm Reed Smith’s building. Reed Smith is moving to Three PNC Plaza in 2009.

With the construction of the new Penguins arena in the Hill District, developers are now looking at the Uptown corridor between downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland.

And the Pittsburgh area has been successful in attracting alternative energy companies to the region as well. EverPower, involved with harnessing wind power, is opening an office in Lawrenceville and Flabeg will open a manufacturing plant near the Pittsburgh airport to produce solar power components.

Pittsburgh seems to be moving to the beat of a different drummer recently. I’ve frequently seen the comment that Pittsburgh’s real estate market didn’t have the excesses of other markets and so wasn’t experiencing the same downturn in the housing market. If that’s true, then the current housing created nationwide economic slowdown might not have the same effect in Pittsburgh as it would in other harder hit locations. While there’s no doubt that the economic effects of the nationwide banking crisis and employment slowdown have had their effects on the Pittsburgh region, a few recent articles have told a much different story about the economy in Pittsburgh compared to that of the nation:

• Pittsburgh has had five consecutive months of job growth, making employment in the seven county Pittsburgh region at its highest since 2001.
• There’s also more demand for hotels in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh was one of only 11 out of the 100 largest US cities to have had hotel occupancy rates increase so far this year. And communities are putting in additional efforts to take advantage of this by pointing visitors toward shopping and other areas of local interest.
• Financial institutions are expanding in the Pittsburgh region - as banks continue to open up new branches in the area.

Longtime readers of Pittsburgh Homes Daily will remember this series of articles by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about how Charlotte is booming because of its development as a center for banking. If Charlotte was dependent on banks for its boom, then it’s worth looking at the charts of their banking giants to see how the city is doing. Since that 2006 article, the stock of Wachovia Bank has declined from ~ $55 to ~ $15 and Bank of America has declined from ~ $52 to ~ $28.

Of course, Harold Miller pointed out in an above article that Pittsburgh generally takes longer to feel the effects of a nationwide downturn than other cities - so it is possible that the worst is yet to come in Pittsburgh. But as of right now, Pittsburgh isn’t acting like a region with a declining population and image problem.

Construction workers should be back to work on the North Shore of Pittsburgh casino by the time you are reading this post. Holdings Acquisition, headed by billionaire Chicago businessman Neil Bluhm, closed on the financing for the purchase of 75% of the Majestic Star Casino in Pittsburgh after construction stopped on the project in June due to default on a bridge loan by Don Barden’s group. It secured approval from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board last week for transfer of the gaming license to Holdings Acquisition.

The purchase of the casino by Bluhm and his family add to their casino holdings - they own about 60 percent of the proposed SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia.

Holdings Acquisition reaffirmed Barden’s commitments to fund the new hockey arena, as well as development in the Hill District and on the North Side. The financing approval and reaffirmation bailed out Pittsburgh taxpayers, who would have been on the hook for Barden’s $225 million commitment.

Multiple newspapers reported that a spokesperson for the company expected construction workers to be back on site on Pittsburgh’s North Shore almost immediately, with construction full speed ahead by next weekend. Pittsburgh’s Majestic Star Casino is expected to open in August of 2009.

The construction webcam can be viewed here: http://www.majesticstar.com/pittsburgh/construction.html

The Urban Redevelopment Authority on Thursday gave Aiello Development and the JRA Development Group exclusive rights to produce architectural plans for six parcels in the Federal North Corridor near the Garden Theater, as well as develop a budget and secure tenants, for six months (with the possibility of a six month extension). Their plans for the $3 million dollar mixed-use redevelopment on the northwest corner of the intersection of Federal and North include a Fifth Third Bank, retail stores, and apartments. The URA also approved the creation of a master plan for the rest of the area by the Central Northside Neighborhood Council. Read more about the news in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The advancement of the project is good news since I had feared that the project would be threatened by the slumping real estate market and difficulty securing financing that stalled the Riverparc Project. My fears seemed to have come true when I saw this posting by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation suggesting that Federal North was being postponed for community planning and further study. Although the news stories suggest that financing for the project hasn’t been secured yet, the small size of the project, the commitment of Fifth Third Bank, and the hot nationwide rental market gives me some optimism that they will be able to secure the funding despite the nation’s credit concerns.

In other news from the Central Northside, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh broke ground this summer on the new North Side Library at 1210 Federal St, Franco Harris’ efforts to open a restaurant on the North Side received a brief mention in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Allegheny General Hospital announced last fall that they would proceed with renovations on the Aeberli House, a historic structure once a funeral home at the corner of North and Sandusky. You can read more about the Aeberli building project from the news stories last year in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Pop City Media.

So somewhere along the way - probably around the time that I was hacked and subsequently upgraded wordpress - my feedburner feed stopped pulling correctly from my regular feed. Hopefully, this post will go out to both the old feed and the feedburner feed and everything will be almost back to normal.

A preliminary report from the FBI has noted a slight decrease in violent crime in Pittsburgh and a dramatic decrease in property crimes in 2007. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review coverage is here.

So I discovered that someone dumped some code linking to a bunch of spammy sites into my last two posts. I’ve since eliminated it and upgraded wordpress - so - here’s my TEST POST to see if I’ve got it fixed or if I’ve got to go back to the drawing board.

The U.S. News & World Report named Upper St. Clair one of “The 10 Brainiest Places to Retire.” USNWR was looking for thriving intellectual and cultural centers where retired individuals who want to keep on learning can stay as busy as they want to be - and with Pittsburgh’s thriving downtown area and 29 colleges and universities - the editors found plenty to offer here.