The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's ambitious riverside housing project, the biggest Downtown housing development in the city's history, "is different from most, if not all," privately funded real estate projects in the United States today, says Robert Campbell, the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for The Boston Globe.

What makes the Pittsburgh project different, he said, is its "higher architectural and social ambitions." Besides being a housing project, it is meant to support the city's arts scene and continue its commitment to environmentally friendly buildings.

		Map & previous article Map: Cultural District development Cultural Trust unveils riverfront housing capstone (07/11/06)

The trust announced the 700-unit, $460 million project last month after more than a year of study. Work is still in the red-tape phase, but tentative site plans are done and a series of further public announcements is set to start in October.

The only other project that mixed the arts and housing at the Cultural Trust's level, said Edward A. Feiner, the former chief architect of the U.S. General Services Administration, might be the housing tower Cesar Pelli designed for New York's Museum of Modern Art in the late 1970s.

"Pittsburgh, perhaps unfairly, doesn't have the reputation of being an arts city particularly," said Mr. Campbell, who, with Mr. Feiner, helped jury the Cultural Trust's housing plans.

"To the extent that the project becomes known, it will help the reputation of the city as a place to live," Mr. Campbell said by phone last week.

First, the trust and its development team, called RiverParc, have to get people to live there. Construction is scheduled for next year, with the first phase of homes opening in 2009, and housing prices are not set.

To make the project work, developers are keen on attracting a mix of ages, incomes and housing needs to the site.

"Downtown living works for a lot of people, but not for others," Susan Eastridge, CEO of Phoenix-based developer Concord Eastridge said last week. "We're very cognizant that, to make this project successful, we have to create housing options, both from a price point and style of living, that will attract people who would enjoy living Downtown."

That means the latest ideas on the drawing board have everything from high-priced townhouses with private garages to small, 800- to 900-square-foot loft-style "flats" with open kitchens and floor plans, to more typical two- and three-bedroom condos in high-rise buildings.

All of the development would emphasize new retail and restaurant spaces, the arts and green building concepts.

"What makes this project different is we're going to come out of the box with four to five different products that will be unique to different markets," said Howard "Hoddy" Hanna III, whose real estate firm will sell the units. "We're not trying to hit four different markets with the same product, which has historically been what occurs here."

The Cultural Trust was founded in 1984 to spur Pittsburgh's economic development through the arts. For years, it has done so by supporting performance spaces such as Benedum Center and the Byham and O'Reilly theaters in the city's cultural district in the Penn-Liberty corridor.

Its massive housing project, unveiled July 10, is meant to be another kind of economic engine, one that ties Penn Avenue to the Allegheny River, infuses Downtown with hundreds of new residents and makes a bold statement about Pittsburgh's support of the arts and environmentally friendly buildings.

The trust, said Mr. Feiner, the director of Skidmore Owings and Merrill architects in Washington, D.C., "continues to take a leadership role in taking risks, taking risks for the greater good of the long-term redevelopment of the city."

Pittsburgh already has the world's largest green-certified building in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. The trust housing project would be built under the same standards and include energy-collecting wind turbines to light the site's public spaces and "urban living rooms" in garden spaces across the site. Architectural drawings emphasize a lot of glass, just like the Alcoa headquarters across the river.

Building green isn't bad business, either.

"There's a feeling that people, especially the Generation X and Y buyer, really like that and it gives it a sense of newness, excitement," Mr. Hanna said. "It's better for utility bills and should be better, long term, for the environment and the occupant."

Ms. Eastridge, who has 24 years in the commercial real estate business, said the project's unique properties made it challenging.

"It has some commitments to objectives you don't run into very often. The objective to have an entire development create an environmentally sustainable neighborhood, that just hasn't been experienced yet in the country. ... Certainly, there have been a lot of large, mixed-use projects with prominent residential uses in any major city, but the commitment to the green, the cultural and the arts, I don't know where that's been replicated."

The project still has no official name, but it is supposed to be unveiled at the trust's annual fund-raiser Oct. 5, which will be held in tents on the development site. Tentative names for streets and alleyways throughout the site could also be revealed.

The six-acre site is on two full city blocks bordered by Seventh and Ninth streets, Penn Avenue and Fort Duquesne Boulevard. Construction of all 700 units is estimated to take 10 years, through 2017.

The first phase of up to 250 units is set to start next summer. It is planned to include a 20-story building and an eight-story building on Fort Duquesne Boulevard, followed by townhouses on Eighth Street. A 30-story building on Penn Avenue and a 22-story building on Fort Duquesne are set for later in phase one.

Plans include renovating two buildings in the southwest corner of the site into a hotel and another high-rise, and perhaps changing the six-story headquarters of Local 1058 of the laborers union headquarters on Eighth Street into a performing arts space. (Union officials, who have said they do not want to sell their building, were out of the office last week and could not be reached.)

Plans include placing a lid on the 10th Street Bypass, allowing people to walk directly from the housing site to the Allegheny River. The trust has proposed a new riverfront park there called the Three Sisters Gallery, after the three yellow bridges over the river. Talks with government officials are continuing on those plans, Ms. Eastridge said.

Developers might also propose building two levels of parking under Fort Duquesne Boulevard. The boulevard would have safety features for walkers.

The run-up to construction next year includes the usual issues with infrastructure repairs, moving utilities and signing contracts with the many firms and stakeholders involved, but there's no change in the $460 million budget the development team announced last month, she said.

While all of the buildings are different to help attract a mix of people, they all have components of retail and restaurant spaces on their lower floors and parking, much of it underground.

"It's kind of a Swiss watch, as far as development planning goes," Ms. Eastridge said.

Howard Hanna Real Estate has a list of about 60 prospective tenants. Sometime after the Oct. 5 Cultural Trust event, it will start creating its "first choice" list. For a refundable $1,000 payment, those on the list will get the first look at housing plans. Those still interested will then pay an estimated 5 percent down payment.

Prices of the units are expected to be decided early next year.