Alco Proposing Two Office Towers, Parking Garage On North Shore

A map of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with its neighborhoods labeled. For use primarily in the list of Pittsburgh neighborhoods. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Three years ago, Alco Parking president Merrill Stabile was rebuffed when he offered the city’s Stadium Authority $10 million to buy land on North Shore Drive for a “signature office tower.”

Now Mr. Stabile is back — this time with plans for a new office development and parking garage on the land he owns behind PNC Park on the North Shore.

As conceived, the project would feature two, 11-story glass office towers erected on top of a new five-story, 1,227-space parking garage. In all, as much as 600,000 square feet of Class A office space would be built.

“We think it’s a game-changer,” said Kim Clackson, senior vice president of CBRE, which is marketing the “very dramatic” development that would rise above the ballpark and offer views of the Downtown skyline.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2014/10/09/Alco-proposing-2-office-towers-parking-garage-on-North-Shore/stories/201410090197

Changing Skyline: Parking Garages Threaten To Wall Off Schuylkill’s East Bank

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Philadelphia spent the last decade working out a single, knotty planning problem: How should the old industrial spaces on the Delaware waterfront evolve? The consensus was that vacant land would be developed to resemble the rest of the city, with walkable streets, a mix of uses, and lively ground floors. No one was naive enough to think such projects could be realized without parking garages, but the expectation was that the structures would not dominate the river.

It’s a shame the conversation was never extended to the city’s other riverfront, the Schuylkill, which has come alive since a trail park pushed into Center City.

Like the Delaware, the Schuylkill is dotted with tracts of empty land crying out for housing, offices, and retail. But while little new has been built on the city’s big river – save for the suburban-style SugarHouse Casino – the Schuylkill is now sizzling with likely projects.

Predictably, each of the three proposals would front the river with a large, unsightly garage. They range from One Riverside’s modest, one-story garage at Locust Street to NP International’s multilevel, mega-development at Cherry Street. If built as designed, they would turn the bustling Schuylkill waterfront into Philadelphia’s own Great Wall of Parking.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/home/20140328_Changing_Skyline__Parking_garages_threaten_to_wall_off_Schuylkill_s_east_bank.html#FYw7GIe2AssxRvpe.99

N.J. Company Seeks Philly Headquarters (Update)

(Is Hill leaving to avoid getting squeezed out? See Update below) Hill International, the multinational construction consulting company, is seeking a new headquarters location in Center City Philadelphia, David Richter, the 4,000-person company’s president and chief operating officer, tells me. “It’s easier to hire people, and there are better buildings and a better labor pool” downtown, compared to the company’s longtime base in Marlton, N.J., he added.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/NJ-company-seeks-Philly-headquarters.html#mZfkhdzqLY2rAgYU.99