By Tim Schooley – Reporter, Pittsburgh Business Times
Jun 1, 2020 Updated Jun 1, 2020, 2:02pm EDT
Whatever the state of the world from a global pandemic and a country assessing the damage after a weekend of demonstrations over the Minneapolis killing of George Floyd, Michael McAllister is ready to go with developing his first major apartment project in Uptown.
Look for construction to begin soon on a six-story, 51-unit apartment project at 1707 Fifth Avenue in what McAllister, the publisher of Urbanist, said “is going to be the first building of scale done in the eco innovation district” of Uptown, a new planning designation for the neighborhood formally adopted by the city in 2017 to foster a host of community ideals for job growth, transportation and environmental improvements.
The project is slated for what is now an open lot formerly owned by Sal Gross that McAllister hopes to get under construction in late summer, at an estimated cost of $10 million that’s privately finance, based on a design by Strip District-based Indovina Associates Architects, with Franjo Construction to build it.
Beyond the distinction of being the first new project to be built in the neighborhood under the eco innovation district, McAllister is operating under looser parking requirements.
The project calls for 10 parking spaces under the designation, a much lower requirement that it might have faced.
McAllister’s new project goes before the Pittsburgh Planning Commission in its first virtual meeting on Tuesday, June 2, the first meeting its held since early March due to the pandemic emergency, and comes after the announcement last week that the Port Authority of Allegheny County has been awarded $100 million to extend a bus rapid transit project through Uptown.
“We really embraced that there was no parking minimums for the eco innovation district,” he said. “The property is right along a terrific transit line that’s only going to get better. The idea that the world is car-focused is going further and further away.”
While featuring less on-site parking, 1707 Fifth will feature a green roof and green, highly efficient mechanical systems, said McAllister, adding the project will be market rate while featuring units of small square footage to help achieve rents he described as approachable.
A resident of the neighborhood, McAllister is currently development two eight-unit apartment projects in Uptown as well, development he’s pursuing after eight years of publishing Urbanist Pittsburgh, an annual guide of the city distributed at 150 locations throughout the city each year, along with a companion publication, Beaux Arts, which is being rebranded to Denizen.
McAllister sees the potential for the development to raise interest in Uptown as his publications have sought to generate greater interest in the city as a whole.
"The hope is that we’re getting folks interested in being in the neighborhood and part of the neighborhood” he said.
While 1707 Fifth Avenue is far from the only recent apartment development in Uptown.
The website for the community organization Uptown Partners of Pittsburgh maps 10 different new residential development projects in the neighborhood, many of them featuring affordable housing units, including the 10-story City's Edge project.