With its eclectic shops and restaurants and turn-of-the-century buildings awaiting restoration, the revitalized Strip District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is prized property right now, attracting more than just visitors. Million-dollar condos, luxury apartments, office buildings and a parking garage are newly built or nearing completion. Other sizable projects soon will start.
“I think it’s shaping up beautifully,” says Chuck Hammel, owner of Pitt Ohio Express and developer of 2500 Smallman condos. Some credit him with starting the Strip District renaissance by recruiting Dan McCaffery, CEO of Chicago-based McCaffery Interests, 10 years ago to redo the Armstrong Cork factory as The Cork Factory Lofts.
1,500 feet long and spanning 4 city blocks, the Produce Terminal was built in 1926 and was serviced by the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Now, McCaffery intends to renovate the iconic Produce Terminal that stretches for five blocks along Smallman Street in the heart of the Strip’s historic market district.
City Urban Redevelopment Authority board members unanimously endorsed the proposal advanced by McCaffery Interests in April of 2016.
Some two years in the making, the McCaffery plan features 65,100 square feet of retail, most of it facing Smallman and anchored by a “merchant shop” at one end; 57,385 square feet of open office space; 18 live-work apartments totaling 12,925 square feet; and 14,678 square feet of existing commercial.
In addition, the developer is proposing to extend the elevated dock that runs the length of the 1,533-foot-long building by 12 feet to make it easier to walk, create pedestrian passages through the structure at 17th, 18th and 20th streets; and to add 280 parking space on the side facing the Allegheny River.
Top image credit: McCaffery Interests
See full Next Pittsburgh article by Sandra Tolliver.
See April 15, 2016 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article by Mark Belko about project approval.