Filed under: Estates
Big construction is going on in downtown Pittsburgh. The downtown area which has long been in a state of slow decline is looking to be revitalized thanks to a couple of major projects especially the Piatt Place project. Piatt Place will be a redesign of the Lazarus department store building. Two upscale chain restaurants, McCormick and Schmick’s and the Capital Grille will anchor the building and the rest of the building will be turned into offices and condos. The residential units are new construction, built on a new slab on top of the roof. The condos begin $330,000 to $1.5 million each and in an article on KDKA it has been reported that 40% of the units are under contract.
But in a nationwide market that’s not, for the most part, favoring condos, there might be trouble ahead. For example at another high-end project in Pittsburgh, 151 First Side, owners have closed on more than half of the 83 units but a handful are already up for resale. At the Carlyle, a project that has currently a 6,000-square-foot penthouse listed at $2.195 million, half of the 60 units are under contract but many of those buyers are investors and the second phase of the project is on hold. It seems that the problem in Pittsburgh isn’t so much a condo glut of the type that has affected so many other cities, but instead is a question of changing people’s perceptions of life downtown and whether or not people are willing to pay these types of prices when for the same amount of money they could get a fairly massive home in the suburbs.
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