Duquesne University is planning its largest construction project in two decades, a block-long mix of retail space, high-rise apartments and other university buildings worth up to $70 million.

WTW Architects Artist's rendering of Duquesne University's Forbes Avenue development proposal. Click photo for larger image. Online Graphic See a graphic that shows how the property would be used.

The construction would vary in height from five to 15 stories, with retailers anchored by a grocery store or a pharmacy occupying the first floor. The complex would be built across Forbes Avenue from campus on land recently purchased by the university.

The work, subject to city approval, is spelled out in an updated master plan that will be presented on Tuesday to the city planning commission for the first of a series of reviews.

University officials said yesterday they hoped the development would create a more attractive front entrance to the campus. Duquesne President Charles J. Dougherty also said he saw it as a catalyst for other development Uptown and in the nearby Hill District.

Over the last generation, he said, much of the Catholic university's development has been focused on the Bluff and, to an extent, had its back turned to Forbes and the surrounding neighborhoods.

"This is a sort of reversal of posture," he said. "It's saying, 'We want to be right on Forbes Avenue.' We want people driving down there to say, 'Ah, there is Duquesne University.' "

The first phase of construction would involve new athletic offices, a sports recruiting facility and a campus fitness and recreation center. Ultimately, though, Duquesne hopes to attract retailers such as a restaurant and bookstore plus up to 400 graduate students and professionals who work on or near campus to an apartment complex that could rise 15 stories.

The development also would offer space for new classrooms and other academic uses, including a theater for on-campus productions, Dougherty said.

Duquesne has been criticized for taking the 20-story Citiline Towers off the tax rolls for use as a campus residence hall. School officials defend their view that the high-rise qualifies for a tax exemption, but they said yesterday that the new development would benefit the public.

If fully built, half of its 700,000 square feet would be taxable, generating at least $600,000 for the financially squeezed city, Pittsburgh Public Schools and Allegheny County, said Stephen A. Schillo, Duquesne's vice president for management and business. He and Dougherty said that would be at least twice what Citiline produced in taxes.

Craig Kwiecinski, a spokesman for Mayor Tom Murphy, had no comment on that assertion. His office has made it plain that it wants Citiline on the tax rolls and yesterday offered a brief reaction to Duquesne's new plan.

"The mayor's office does support this development. We believe that it should be taxable, but this is not a tradeoff for the taxes that are owed on Citiline Towers," he said.

Duquesne is in exploratory talks with tenants, including grocers, and is seeking a private developer to share costs of the project, Dougherty said. He declined to name parties involved in those discussions.

The school is in the quiet phase of a fund-raising campaign whose size has yet to be disclosed.

The project could be under way in late 2006 or 2007, provided it receives necessary approvals and financing, Duquesne officials said.

The block in Uptown where the development is planned recently was acquired by Duquesne for $8.5 million, Schillo said. It is between Chatham Square, near the university's Forbes Avenue entrance, and Magee Street, close to the A.J. Palumbo Center.

A version of Duquesne's master plan filed with the planning commission in February envisioned the new athletic facilities as part of an expanded Palumbo Center. But Duquesne officials said the new site put those facilities diagonally across Forbes from Palumbo while reducing the amount of demolition required for the job.

The new development detailed by Duquesne yesterday would be the largest in physical size since the Palumbo Center construction some two decades ago, Schillo said. The work would include an elevated walkway across Forbes Avenue connecting the new complex with another element of the master plan: A 90-foot elevator at the Forbes Avenue garage that would carry pedestrians between the lower and upper parts of campus.

Duquesne officials said those living on and off the 10,000-student campus now travel to the South Side for groceries. A grocer on Forbes, they said, would benefit the neighborhood as a whole and fit well with other proposed improvements in the area, including a proposed new Penguins arena.

"We're hoping that the city is turning a corner in terms of livability Downtown, and if the city is, and if there are going to be more amenities for urban life, this would be a key place for people to want to live," Dougherty said. "It's walking distance to Downtown."

The new plan joins tens of millions of dollars of other projects in Duquesne's master plan for its 43-acre campus. Some of the nearly two dozen projects envisioned in its first 10-year phase include:

A new music recital hall that, along with a glass-enclosed atrium, will link the Mary Pappert School of Music with McAnulty College, which houses liberal arts programs and also is being expanded.

Placing six floors onto Vickroy Hall, an eight-story residence complex.

Adding two or three stories to the Bayer Learning Center.

Enlarging Rockwell Hall, which houses various programs, including the graduate and undergraduate business school and the school of leadership and professional advancement.

Adding 1,100 to 1,500 permanent football seats at Rooney Field, a project that will seek to preserve elevated views of the South Side.

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