A long time in coming, the Pittsburgh Penguins are finally ready to advance the first major development at the former Civic Arena site. But one community group says the team still has work to do to gain its support.
Team officials expect to go before the city planning commission next month for final approval of a 26-story office tower that will be the headquarters of First National Bank.
The timetable for city approval emerged last week during a meeting sponsored by the Hill Community Development Corp.
Marimba Milliones, Hill CDC president and CEO, said the team is trying to arrange a required community meeting this month in advance of its proposed date with the planning commission.
Kevin Acklin, the Penguins’ chief operating officer, confirmed that the team is preparing to advance the FNB project for final approvals by the planning commission, the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, and the Sports & Exhibition Authority in March and April.
The $230 million office tower is to be built at the western edge of the arena site, owned by the URA and SEA, closest to Downtown.
It is to feature 471,890 square feet of office space. FNB is expected to take more than 160,000 square feet spread over nine floors, with options to expand. The building also would include 20,000 square feet of retail space and two levels of parking.
FNB is slated to receive $10 million in state redevelopment assistance capital funding to help with the project. The bank itself has committed to investing more than $220 million, Gov. Tom Wolf’s office has said.
The move to get the FNB project going comes after the team, which holds the development rights to the 28-acre site, missed an October deadline for buying the first 6.45 acres, blaming the COVID-19 pandemic.
In December, the URA and SEA rejected a request by the Penguins to extend the deadline for taking control of the land until April 30, meaning the team could lose 20% of the parking revenue it generates from the site if it doesn’t develop 10.75 acres over the next three years.
The FNB project would be the first step in that direction.
As the Penguins, FNB, and developer Buccini Pollin Group get ready to finally advance a redevelopment that has been more than a decade in the making, the Hill CDC believes there still is work to be done.
Ms. Milliones told those who attended the organization’s virtual gathering last week that the FNB project still is not in alignment with the Hill District master plan or a community collaboration and implementation plan related to the 28-acre site.
In April, the project received a failing grade in terms of both from a CDC development review panel made up of Hill residents, she said. A revised plan submitted last month also failed to pass muster, she added.
“They still have not met the standard we established for the Hill District,” she said.
While the Penguins and FNB have made progress in reaching out to minority and women-owned businesses, have secured a minority equity investor, and have hired some Hill businesses to help in the project, they still have fallen short in other areas, she said.
Ms. Milliones stressed that she still hopes the Penguins and their partners will “rise to the occasion” to address the concerns that have been raised for Hill CDC support for the FNB project.
In response, Mr. Acklin said the development team has engaged with the community collaboration and implementation plan executive committee and the neighborhood for more than a year.
That has included bi-weekly meetings with the executive committee over the past 14 months and several additional presentations to the development review panel and the community.
“We won’t let politics get in the way of delivering family sustaining jobs, transformational community benefits and wealth creation for residents of the Hill District and the entire region,” he said.
As part of the office project, FNB has pledged to advance $11 million designed to go to the middle and upper Hill through tax revenue generated by development at the former arena site.
In all, more than $40 million is estimated to go to other parts of the Hill through development on the 28 acres.
The FNB project isn’t the only concern the Hill CDC has related to the former arena site.
During last week’s meeting, Ms. Milliones said it appears the lower Hill site will become part of the middle Hill in the latest U.S. census tract. Before, the lower Hill was part of the Downtown tract.
While that may not seem significant, it could have ramifications for the middle Hill, she maintained.
The change means the former arena site could qualify for federal Opportunity Zone status and low income housing tax credits, potentially siphoning those benefits away from other parts of the Hill, Ms. Milliones said.
“We are quite stunned that there was no community engagement on this major and significant proposed change,” she said, adding that the Hill CDC is researching to see whether there’s a way to fight it.
The arena site, she said, already has received millions of dollars in federal and state subsidies.
But Mr. Acklin argued that the change would have the exact opposite effect and benefit other parts of the Hill.
“Expanding the Opportunity Zone to include the lower Hill will attract more capital to the lower Hill, and to the middle and upper Hill District,” he said.
“The lower Hill, and our historic commitments to minority participation, wealth creation and direct community benefits for Hill District residents, is the paradigm site that [U.S.] Sen.[Cory] Booker had in mind when he drafted the Opportunity Zone legislation.”
The change has the support of the state.
In an April 1, 2019, letter, Dennis Davin, state community and economic development secretary, said the former arena site is “critically linked” to the middle Hill and that its inclusion within the Opportunity Zone “is necessary for revitalization of the Greater Hill District.”
If the lower Hill site isn’t included in the zone, the rest of the Hill and adjacent neighborhoods “will not receive the full benefits” from the arena redevelopment and “it will be impossible” to generate the more than $40 million designated to go to other parts of the neighborhood from tax revenues, he wrote.
Mark Belko: mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.
First Published: February 9, 2021, 10:48 a.m.
