From Millcraft to Piatt
Developer changes its name but not its focus
The developer that has been instrumental in reshaping Downtown Pittsburgh over the last two decades is changing its name.
Millcraft Investments has become Piatt Companies. The name was chosen to honor the firm’s founder, Jack B. Piatt, who died in 2020 at the age of 92.
While the name has changed, the company’s focus on real estate development, management and hospitality is expected to remain the same.
“We want to continue delivering world-class projects that reach down the block and across the world by maintaining our guiding principles with the community and creating new, interesting, people -centered placemaking experiences for the Pittsburgh region,” Piatt Companies CEO Lucas Piatt said in a statement Friday.
Since entering the Pittsburgh market in 2005, Piatt has been responsible for a number of big projects Downtown.
They include the conversion of the former Lazarus department store into condos, offices and retail; transformation of the old G.C. Murphy’s five and ten into apartments, retail and restaurants; rehab of the former State Office Building into residential; and construction of the Tower Two-Sixty office, hotel and retail complex.
Add to that condo and parking garage projects on Fifth Avenue and its total investment in Downtown surpasses $500 million.
However, the company, with roots in Washington County, may be best known for creating Southpointe, the sprawling 600acre development near Canonsburg that features offices, hotels, residential, restaurants and a golf course.
Piatt is now working on a proposed $600 million project on the North Side dubbed the Esplanade. It would host a giant Ferris Wheel, a marina, apartments, a splash park and other amenities.
Beyond real estate development, the company’s divisions include property management, commercial and residential leasing, hotels, interior design, insurance, restaurants and retail, and Piatt Sotheby’s International Realty brokerage, which sells luxury real estate.