Walnut Capital completes Bakery Square
A decade after Walnut Capital began its bid to transform a former Nabisco plant in Larimer into a state-of-the-art mixed-use development, it has all but completed the assignment, breaking ground Friday on a nine-story office building that will house Philips Sleep and Respiratory Care.
The Shadyside developer isn’t sure what its next big splash will be. But it has no plans to just tread water, president Todd Reidbord said.
In fact, although the new building — the third at Bakery Square — represents the final piece in the development of the 20-acre tech hub straddling Penn Avenue in the East End, it might not be Walnut Capital’s last hurrah in that part of the neighborhood.
The developer already is working on plans for an estimated $28 million transit center to link Bakery Square to the Martin Luther King Jr. Busway and to Hamilton Avenue in Larimer.
“We’re very interested in bridging the busway and the railroad tracks and looking at Hamilton Avenue. Obviously,
there’s other corridors up and down the East Liberty and Shadyside and Larimer neighborhoods that we’re at the intersection of that could potentially have some opportunity for us,” Mr. Reidbord said.
Walnut Capital at one time had a former Salvation Army warehouse at Hamilton and East Liberty Boulevard behind Bakery Square under a purchase agreement but never finalized the deal. It still is interested in pursuing development in that part of the neighborhood, Mr. Reidbord said.
Mayor Bill Peduto, who attended Friday’s groundbreaking, called the Hamilton Avenue corridor in Larimer and Homewood “prime and ready” for development.
He said it is filled with old warehouses that are either underutilized or vacant. There have been discussions involving some, the mayor said.
“It’s a natural growth area. As we see the investment that we’ve been putting in Larimer, this has the ability to enhance it toward Homewood and to see the Hamilton Avenue stretch continue.”
Mr. Peduto said the corridor already is showing signs of life with the opening of a $15 million shelter for the Animal Rescue League/ Western PA Humane Society last year and the recent announcement of a $14 million public-private partnership to build a multi-sport turf field in Homewood.
“We want to be able to see that entire stretch go through the neighborhood, building almost like a campus-like setting for entertainment, the arts, education, job retraining, and connecting all the way back down to this site as well,” Mr. Peduto said.
At the Bakery Square 2.0 complex on the Shadyside part of Penn Avenue, Philips will take a little more than six floors in the new building. That will leave a little more than two floors to lease.
Mr. Reidbord said that will give Philips and other Bakery Square tenants — including Google, UPMC, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh — opportunities to grow or make room for new companies to enter the market.
“There are no serious talks taking place with potential tenants,” he said. “We’re just catching our breath right now.”
Overall, the Bakery Square development now includes three office buildings, two parking garages, hotel and retail space, 350 apartments, and 52 for-sale townhouses.
Philips decided to move many of its employees to Bakery Square after testing the market when it relocated 125 workers to Schenley Place in Oakland in 2017. It will bring about 1,250 jobs to the Bakery Square headquarters. The company employs more than 1,700 people in the region.
John Frank, business leader for Philips Sleep and Respiratory Care, said the company made the move to Bakery Square to be close to “a lot of the leading institutions, start-ups, and universities and health care” providers in the area.
“As we evolve our business and get to the next level, we want to capitalize on this area and the rich innovation it has to help us grow our business,” he said.
Philips plans to keep its manufacturing, distribution and service associates and facilities in Westmoreland County.
Construction of Bakery Office Three, as the new building is called, is expected to start in October. It will take two years to complete.
As part of Friday’s ceremony, Walnut Capital committed another $100,000 to Pittsburgh Promise.
It has donated about $100,000 since Bakery Square broke ground in 2008.