The Pittsburgh Penguins will try again this week to skate free of the latest skirmish in their bid to start the long-awaited redevelopment of the former Civic Arena site.
City Urban Redevelopment Authority members are convening a special meeting Friday to once again consider preliminary approvals needed to start work on the first 288 residential units and a music venue and parking garage on the 28-acre lower Hill District tract.
Members tabled a vote last week after some Hill community groups and residents stated that they had not had time to review the terms of the deal and raised concerns about some aspects of it.
The biggest change in the latest term sheet to go before the board is that it requires the team, if it obtains project-based vouchers from the city Housing Authority, to designate 20% of the housing units — 58 in all — to households earning 50% or less of the area median income.
For one person, 50% of the AMI would be $28,000, according to the URA. For a family of four, it is $39,950.
Intergen, the minority developer hired by the Penguins to do the first two phases of housing, plans to work with the Pittsburgh Housing Authority to secure the project-based vouchers needed to get to those levels of affordability.
The new language clarifies that the affordable units, assuming the vouchers are obtained, would be affordable to those at or below 50% of the AMI.
At the meeting last week, the Hill District Consensus Group questioned language that seemed to limit those units to households at 50-60% of the AMI. Vouchers typically give those at levels as low as 20-30% of the AMI access to such housing.
Carl Redwood, consensus group chairman, said Tuesday the language related to the affordable housing was still vague and does not guarantee that the units would be rented to those at 50% or below the AMI.
“We need to make sure 20% are rented to low-income families. There are no guarantees that 20% of the units will be rented to [those at] 50% of the AMI or below,” he said.
Neither URA board member R. Daniel Lavelle, a city councilman who asked for the delay last week, nor Marimba Milliones, the Hill Community Development Corp. president and CEO who pushed for more time to review the term sheet, could be reached for comment.
At Friday’s meeting, URA board members also are expected to vote on a $1 million loan to Intergen to help with the affordable housing. It is contingent on the firm getting the project-based vouchers needed from the housing authority.
Estimated at $82.3 million, the first phase of the housing will be spread over 3.9 acres near Crawford Square. Intergen is proposing to build 167 units in a six-story building and 121 units in a 12-story structure. There are also plans for a 221-space underground parking garage.
The $127.5 million music venue and 850-space parking garage would be built on a 2.56-acre tract on the north side of the site.
Buccini/Pollin Group, hired by the Penguins to handle the commercial aspects of the redevelopment, is proposing a 97,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor venue with capacity for about 6,400 people.
Also planned are 17,800 square feet of street-level retail space and 34,000 square feet of entertainment and retail on the second and third floors.
As part of the deal, the developer also is providing up to 1,200 square feet of first-floor retail space on Wylie Avenue to the URA at $1 annually for 29 years for use as a small business incubator for minority- and Hill-owned businesses.
In addition, the Penguins will provide space to relocate a city Rescue 2 EMS station from the Boulevard of the Allies to the garage site.
At Friday’s meeting, the board also will consider approving a plan under which 75% of the parking taxes generated by the garage would be used to help pay for it and the music venue.
That amounts to an estimated $24.3 million over 19 years. The city would receive $8.1 million over 20 years from its 25% share, with the money received in the last year transferred into an affordable housing fund.
According to the URA, the surface parking that now dominates the arena site produces about $150,471 a year in parking taxes.
The Penguins, who hold development rights to the arena site, also are talking to banks about advancing up to $30 million in loans that could be used immediately for projects in other parts of the Hill.
That money would be repaid through a portion of the tax revenue generated by development. The rest, under an amendment to be considered Friday, would go to the team to be used for site improvements rather than into a separate fund for that purpose.
The land that will be used for the housing is owned by the URA. The Pittsburgh-Allegheny County Sports & Exhibition Authority owns the parcels needed for the music venue/garage.
Mark Belko: mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.
First Published: October 15, 2019, 10:56 p.m.
