The owners of the former LTV Coke Works site in Hazelwood may take a bold step in a bid to capture the demand they are seeing from start-ups looking for larger space and suburban companies coveting an urban location in the Pittsburgh region.
Almono LLC is “working directly with multiple companies to determine if a speculative building should be advanced in 2019” at the Hazelwood Green site, in part to address fast-growing market needs.
The possibility of a spec construction was raised in a request for qualifications issued last week by Almono for the first phase of development at the 178-acre riverfront site.
Rebecca Flora, Hazelwood Green project director, said spec construction — meaning to build without a signed tenant — is still in the “very early exploratory” stages.
The reason the Almono partnership is considering the move is to try to keep pace with the growing demand from start-ups and tech companies seeking to expand, as well as suburban companies looking to move into the city to attract or keep talent, Ms. Flora said.
Many start-ups and tech companies are growing at such a quick rate, she said, that the traditional design and build real estate approach doesn’t move fast enough to meet their needs.
“The timing for them to occupy the space is often faster than what it takes to realistically design and build a building,” she said.
Should Almono decide to go the spec route, it would “put together an overall development approach that would include investors,” she said. The partnership is made up of Heinz Endowments, the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation.
If such a building is erected, it would be within 27 acres of land in the middle of the site dubbed the Mill District. That also is the focus of the request for qualifications.
The Mill District is where the Regional Industrial Development Corp. already is engaged in the overhaul of the old Mill 19 Building on 12 acres of land.
RIDC has started construction on a 94,000-square-foot first phase being built inside the mill superstructure. That structure will house Carnegie Mellon University’s Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute and Manufacturing Futures Initiative.
Within the 12 acres it owns, RIDC also is planning two additional phases — one just under 70,000 square feet and the other up to 110,000 square feet. The first phase of the development should be completed next year.
In the request for qualifications, Almono is seeking “highly qualified” developers to build out another 27 acres. The Mill District could feature as much as 2.8 million square feet of mixed use development, including as many as 1,050 residential units.
The RFQ could mark the first test in judging interest from developers in what is considered one of the region’s premier development sites.
“It’s a very big step,” Ms. Flora said, noting it was made possible by the city planning commission’s recent approval of the preliminary land development plan for the site.
According to the request for qualifications, interest in Hazelwood Green has risen dramatically in the last year, in part because of the CMU presence within the Mill 19 redevelopment.
Responses are due Nov. 19. Almono will sort through them to find the “best qualified.” Those finalists will be invited to submit a proposal for the development of the Mill 19 District.
Almono won’t make a decision on whether to construct a speculative building at the site until after the responses have been received, Ms. Flora said. It may even see if any of those that respond would be interested in partnering in such a venture.
Developers seeking to build at Hazelwood Green will be facing high sustainability standards. For office buildings, that could include the standard of LEED Gold, the second highest in the green building rating system.
Almono also is going for a LEED for Neighborhood Development Plan certification. Net zero energy is the goal for the site, which could produce much of its own electricity.
There are plans to capture and reuse rainwater and to limit parking.
Mark Belko: mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.
First Published: October 2, 2018, 1:28 p.m.
