URA accepts deal for Strip District landmark
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The URA gave a five-year lease to the Buncher Co. to manage the 80-plus-year-old produce terminal on Smallman Street.
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City Urban Redevelopment Authority board members approved a five-year lease with the Buncher Co. Thursday to take over the Strip District's historic produce terminal, and vowed to take care of the wholesalers that work from it, even if it means moving them.
Under the agreement, approved unanimously, Buncher would have the option to purchase the 80-plus-year-old Strip landmark for $1.8 million. But if it exercises that right, it also must build at least 75 units of housing on the Allegheny riverfront behind it.
Buncher will pay the URA $15,275 a month to lease the facility, where the wholesalers have been a big part of the Strip's character for the last century.
URA officials trumpeted the agreement as the first tangible piece of action in Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's plan to redevelop 80 acres of land along the Allegheny River from the Strip to Lawrenceville.
"I can't remember doing something this exciting in the four to five years I've chaired this board," said chairman Yarone Zober, Mr. Ravenstahl's chief of staff.
But Mr. Zober acknowledged that transformation won't take place without "pain for some."
That likely will include the wholesalers that remain in the terminal. They probably will be forced to give up the spots they've held, some for decades, once their leases expire in 2012.
Nonetheless, Mr. Zober and others promised to commit whatever resources are necessary to find "a good place" for those tenants. He said he's even willing to use the $1.8 million the URA would get from the sale of the building to make that happen.
"These folks deserve a better location than they're at now," he said. "I commit the resources to do that."
Likewise, city councilman R. Daniel Lavelle, a URA board member, pledged to take care of wholesalers.
"We're not looking to harm the tenants in any way. We will work with them to make sure their businesses are viable," he said.
One wholesaler has described a potential relocation as an "injustice," given the impact the group has had on the Strip and its history. Others have expressed concern about being relocated outside of the neighborhood. One site under study is in Lawrenceville.
Joe Jackovic, executive vice president and general counsel for Buncher, said the fate of the wholesalers and the terminal will be decided with the help of consultants.
He noted that all wholesalers will be staying at least until their leases expire in 2012. Buncher decided to lease the building as part of the "development process," he said.
The company would like to consider other uses for the terminal as part of its plan to redevelop 55 acres of parking behind it into housing.
First Published December 10, 2010 12:00 am
