Prime Downtown real estate to remain empty for now after plans for a parking lot fall apart

‘We have walked away very, very disappointed’

More than a decade after a developer first advanced plans for a hotel, a prime piece of Downtown real estate continues to sit vacant after the latest deal for the site collapsed.

Parkway Corp., a Philadelphiabased parking operator and developer, bailed out in December after its rights to purchase the property, located on Ross Street between Forbes and Fourth avenues, expired.

It did so after the Pittsburgh Zoning Board of Adjustment denied variances that would have allowed the developer to use the land for parking for five to eight years while it came up with a redevelopment plan for the site.

Parkway was in the middle of an appeal of the zoning board’s decision when its purchase rights expired. At that point, it withdrew the appeal.

Since then the fenced-in lot — which for years was used by Allegheny County to park cars — has remained vacant. It is owned by Ross Hospitality Associates LP, an affiliate of Kratsa Properties, which once had plans to build a 156-room, six-story hotel there.

The parcel is one of the few vacant sites for potential redevelopment remaining in Downtown, where more than a decade of building has left land scarce. But so far no one has seized the opportunity.

Months after withdrawing the appeal, Robert Zuritsky, Parkway’s president and chief executive officer, is still bitter about the zoning board’s handling of the variance requests.

“We spent a lot of time and a lot