Steel-Town Brownfields Becoming Waterside Homes, Offices
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
10 May 2011
By Tory N. Parrish
Tom and Deneen Loughran like living in Pleasant Hills, but the
empty-nesters have their sights set on a change: They are buying a
$375,000 house in Oakmont along the Allegheny River.
The couple found the Edgewater at Oakmont development attractive
because of the diversity of homes it will include and their ability to
customize a two-story carriage home, said Deneen Loughran, 56. "It's
just a beautiful, beautiful floor plan," she said.
Edgewater is one of two dozen projects taking shape — together worth
more than $500 million — that officials said are driving riverfront
redevelopment in Allegheny County. Many are on remediated brownfields,
or decontaminated industrial sites. Edgewater at Oakmont was home to
the Edgewater Steel Co. plant that closed 10 years ago.
In all, 185 miles of riverfront properties line the Allegheny,
Monongahela, Ohio and Youghiogheny rivers in Allegheny County, says a
2010 county report on riverfront development.
"Pittsburgh and Allegheny County have a benefit because we have miles
and miles of riverfront," said Dennis Davin, director of the county's
Economic Development department.
The redevelopment of riverfront sites often is touted as a way to
attract industry and people, improve aesthetics and boost tax
collections.
Sometimes, it can do more. Chuck Starrett, an administrator with the
development group Steel Valley Enterprise Zone Corp., pointed to The
Waterfront as an example.
"It changed the image of people in this area," he said.
The Waterfront, a large retail, residential and entertainment
development completed nearly a decade ago, primarily in Homestead, sits
along the Monongahela River on U.S. Steel Corp.'s former Homestead
Works property. Most of the property, 1.4 million square feet, is owned
by Beachwood, Ohio-based Developers Diversified Realty.
'Location, location, location'
In Oakmont, the Edgewater development will cost $100 million and cover
34 acres, said Brett Malky of EQA Landmark Communities of Bridgeville,
which is developing the project with Kacin Companies Inc. of
Murrysville.
It will include 240 residential units — townhouses and cottage homes —
and 45,000 square feet of retail and office space. The project,
financed by private lenders and a $7 million loan from the Pennsylvania
Infrastructure Investment Authority, is to be completed in four years.
"I'm an urban planner by training, and it really goes to the
fundamentals of the way we formed as a nation and to what have always
been the principal drivers of real estate — namely 'location, location,
location,' " he said.
Loughran agreed. Oakmont offers the right mix of traditional
neighborhood charm and cosmopolitan feel, she said.
"It's really self-contained. It's almost like a city in the suburbs,"
said Loughran, who said she and her husband, 57, expect to close on
their home in September.
In Pittsburgh, along the Monongahela River, location translates into a
valuable connection between Downtown and Oakland. Redevelopment related
to technology, medicine and bioscience, the specialty of Oakland's
universities, can link to the city's commerce core, said Lisa
Schroeder, president of Riverlife, a nonprofit formed to maximize use
of Pittsburgh's riverfronts. The Pittsburgh Technology Center on Second
Avenue in South Oakland is nicely located between the two.
Quality of life figures in the riverfront development.
Brownfields-turned-living quarters include Washington's Landing and the
North Shore on the Allegheny, the SouthSide Works on the Monongahela,
and Summerset at Frick Park near Nine Mile Run, the largest residential
development established in Pittsburgh since World War II, Schroeder
said.
Since 2001, Riverlife has been leading or supporting several riverfront
redevelopment projects in Pittsburgh within Three Rivers Park, whose
boundaries are the West End Bridge over the Ohio River, the 31st Street
Bridge over the Allegheny River and the Hot Metal Bridge over the
Monongahela River.
Three Rivers Park is intended to be a green riverfront development
connecting with trails, bridges, bikeways and marinas, Schroeder said.
Pittsburgh's Allegheny Riverfront Vision Plan, published in February,
looks at redevelopment along the Allegheny, from 11th Street to
Highland Park, 40 to 50 years out, said Stephen Quick, a principal at
architectural firm Perkins Eastman, project manager for the plan.
Reconnecting neighborhoods to riverfronts is one of the drivers of the
plan, said Rob Stephany, executive director of the city's Urban
Redevelopment Authority.
Paying for it
Public-private partnerships paid for many of the larger riverfront
developments in the county, said F. Brooks Robinson, spokesman for the
Regional Industrial Development Corp.
One partnership is the group of nonprofits developing a 178-acre
Hazelwood property occupied by Jones and Laughlin Steel Co. from 1884
to 1974, when it was bought by Ling Temco Vought Coke Works. The steel
plant closed in 1997.
Almono LP, made up of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, The
Heinz Endowments, Richard King Mellon Foundation and McCune Foundation,
bought the tract for $10 million in 2002.
Managed by the RIDC, the site is intended to have residential,
clean-industrial and office developments, as well as green space, RIDC
President Don Smith Jr. said. Almono LP hopes to begin construction of
buildings next year, he said.
Within Pittsburgh, the Almono site is the last former steel site of its
size to be developed, said Sabina Deitrick, director of the Urban and
Regional Analysis Program at the University of Pittsburgh's University
Center for Urban and Social Research.
Although federal and state funding cutbacks continue, it is difficult
to say whether there will be less public assistance for redevelopment,
Davin said.
"We have not seen a real reduction in our deal flow," he said. "We're
still busy."
County assistance can include tax-increment financing, through which
taxing bodies agree to divert some money from a project's increased
assessment value to pay for infrastructure improvements over a period
of time, usually 20 years.
Development of River's Edge of Oakmont, a multi-use project adjacent to
the Edgewater at Oakmont, can't proceed without $8 million in
tax-increment financing, said Mike Pehur, a development services
manager with Pittsburgh-based GSP Consulting, which is assisting with
the process.
Brooks and Blair Waterfront Properties plan for the $85 million
development on 28 acres to include 168 single-family homes, townhouses,
condos and apartments and 14,000 square feet of commercial space.
Allegheny County, the Riverview School District and Oakmont are
considering the pros and cons of approving the tax scheme.
The economic impact of the developments in Oakmont will occur slowly,
but likely would be substantial because of homes being added to a
housing inventory that includes century-old houses, and because of
demand for homes with living space primarily on one floor, borough
Manager Bruce D. Jamison said.
Tory N. Parrish can be reached at tparrish@tribweb.com or 412-380-5662.