Downtown civic hub could have a future as affordable housing
A longtime hub of local government and a former steel company headquarters could be converted into affordable housing under a proposal before the Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority.
The URA has selected ActionHousing to submit a formal proposal for the redevelopment of the John P. Robin Civic Building at 200 Ross St., Downtown.
Lena Andrews, Action Housing vice president of real estate development, told the URA board Thursday that the agency shares “a vision of converting this into affordable housing.”
It also would like to use some of the space in the 13story structure to house agencies involved in affordable housing initiatives.
“It’s a significant building and it means a lot to us to be entrusted to renovate a building with so much history,” she said.
While the project is still in the very preliminary stages, Action Housing estimates the building could hold as many as 54 units, Ms. Andrews said. It is considering a mix of efficiencies and one- and two-bedroom apartments. It has calculated the cost of the project at $45 million.
Action Housing was one of five respondents to a request for qualifications the URA issued Nov. 13 to gauge interest in the 116year-old property.
It did so after a request for proposals last summer produced not a single bidder for the real estate, which housed URA, city housing authority, and city zoning and planning offices for decades.
The request for qualifications, on the other hand, yielded a “robust response,” according to Tom Link, the URA’s chief development officer.
He said Action Housing was chosen based on its “responsiveness” to the RFQ and its “track record to develop.”
The next step will be to invite Action Housing to submit a formal redevelopment proposal. Ms. Andrews said that could take four to six months. Should all go well, that would be followed by a period of exclusive negotiations with the developer for the sale of the building.
In the RFQ, the URA sought firms with “experience in adaptive reuse, historic preservation, and affordable housing development. At the time, it stated that one goal was to convert at least part of the building to affordable housing, a priority of Mayor Ed Gainey.”
The authority is currently working on a 10-year tax abatement program that would be offered to developers interested in converting Downtown office buildings into apartments, including affordable units.
It also launched a $6 million program to increase the stock of affordable housing in the Golden Triangle. But so far that initiative has attracted only one taker.
The URA has been trying to dispose of the Robin Building for more than a decade.
In 2011, the board voted to sell the real estate to Philadelphia developer PMC Property Group for $1 million for conversion to 100 residential units. The deal fell apart when the city and the two authorities couldn’t find new places for their offices.
That changed in 2019 when the city, the URA, and the Housing Authority purchased the former Art Institute of Pittsburgh building on the Boulevard of the Allies Downtown for $27.5 million.
All three have since vacated the Robin Building. Last August, the URA purchased the city’s ownership stake in that structure for $1 and the housing authority’s for $1.3 million.
Before being converted to government use, the building, with its ornate board room on the 13th floor, served as the headquarters for the Jones & Laughlin Steel Co.
Built in 1907, the structure originally was eight stories tall. As the steelmaker expanded, it added five stories in 1917.
Also Thursday, the URA board:
• Awarded 26 Avenue of Hope grants totaling more than $2 million for projects along the Chartiers Avenue, Second Avenue, Larimer Avenue, East Warrington Avenue and Brownsville Road and Perrysville Avenue corridors. The money is coming from American Rescue Plan dollars.
• Sold property in the Hill District for $2 to Communion Place LLC for the construction of a four-story building with eight affordable apartment units — six one-bedroom and two studios — and 1,362 square feet of street level commercial space. Total cost of the development is $4 million.