Go-ahead for razing terminal in Strip District goes before URA
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With the demolition of the Civic Arena in full swing, the city is preparing to give its consent to bring down part of another landmark building -- the Strip District's historic produce terminal.
Urban Redevelopment Authority board members are expected to vote Thursday on a memorandum of understanding that clears the way for the Buncher Co. to demolish more than 500 feet of the 1,478-foot-long building as part of a proposed riverfront development.
Removing the western portion of the five-block-long URA-owned terminal would create a path to extend 17th Street to the Allegheny River. It is a key element of a plan to build as many as 1,000 units of housing on Buncher-owned property, mostly used for parking right now, behind the produce terminal.
Joanna Doven, spokeswoman for Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, said the URA's action Thursday "will trigger millions of dollars of economic activity that will bring jobs and residents" into the Strip.
"We see this development as something that has the potential to create economic activity for years and years as we open up the riverfront to more development," she said.
Tom Balestrieri, Buncher president and CEO, said the more immediate effect of the decision will be to allow his firm to go ahead with millions of dollars in infrastructure work, including the construction of a new road that will start at 11th Street and run parallel to Smallman Street behind the terminal, in anticipation of future development. That work, which also will involve new water and sewer lines, sidewalks and traffic signals, is expected to start this spring.
Mr. Balestrieri said demolition work on the terminal probably won't start for some time, noting that the leases of the handful of produce wholesalers still in the building don't expire until the end of the year.
"It's not likely that it will happen this year, let me put it that way," he said of the razing.
The future of the wholesalers, so interwoven in the history of the Strip, has yet to be decided, although it is likely that they will be moved elsewhere at some point.
Buncher and the city are moving forward with the memorandum of understanding after the federal advisory council for historic preservation determined that no formal federal historic review process was required in deciding the fate of the terminal.
In anticipation of a possible federal review process, both parties had been engaged in consultations with various organizations over preservation aspects for months.
First Published February 7, 2012 12:00 am
