As he stood outside the glossy glass gem that is the FNB Financial Center at the former Civic Arena site, Chris Buccini could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Nearly five years after his company first inked a deal to build it, after countless tense community meetings, after the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent crash of office markets here and nationwide, the 26-story skyscraper is ready to open.
“It’s almost like Christmas,” said Mr. Buccini, president of Buccini Pollin Group, the developer behind the project.
He won’t be entirely satisfied until an unwrapping of sorts — the day employees of First National Bank, the tower’s anchor, walk through the revolving doors into the building’s spacious two-story lobby. That should happen next month.
“That’s going to be my day of excitement,” Mr. Buccini said.
The $300 million building is the first — and only — project to be completed at the 28-acre former arena site since the Pittsburgh Penguins won the development rights to the Lower Hill District property in 2007.
It also represents the first new skyscraper to be added to the Downtown skyline since the Tower at PNC Plaza, PNC’s headquarters, opened in 2015. And Mr. Buccini believes it’s the largest commercial office building project in the state.
Buccini Pollin decided to move ahead with the development in summer 2020, just a few months after COVID swept across America, shutting down businesses and schools and forcing people out of their offices and into their homes to work.
“These were unprecedented times and we said let’s move forward, which is why we are one of the only new office buildings in America that is being delivered, and it’s right here in the middle of Pittsburgh,” he said. “Like, how cool is that for Pittsburgh?”
As it prepares to open, FNB Financial Center, located at the lower end of the arena site closest to Downtown, is currently 64% occupied.
First National Bank will fill about half of the 469,452-square-foot complex. Other tenants that have signed leases are accounting firm BDO USA, the Cohen Seglias Pallas Greenhall & Furman law firm, and GH Advertising.
Buccini Pollin is talking to another five “very, very strong” prospective tenants, Mr. Buccini said.
FNB, now headquartered on the North Shore, will move about 800 to 1,000 employees into the building starting next month.
“As the largest stakeholder in the building and majority equity and capital provider, we are very pleased with the progress that we have made with FNB Financial Center,” said Vincent J. Delie Jr., chairman, president, and CEO of FNB Corp. and First National Bank.
“We expect to deliver the project on budget and on schedule. We had an intricate role in designing the building and space and because of our investment we were able to make it an exceptional place for our employees and clients, with the amenities that are necessary to attract talented team members in a collaborative workspace environment.”
Even as move-in day draws closer, construction crews are still putting finishing touches on the building, both inside and outside. Work continues to take place on the landscaping outside the tower, where grass is growing and many sidewalks are in place.
Mr. Buccini said the building itself was pretty much finished in May. Crews had to wait until that point before they could start work on the landscaping and the sprawling outdoor plaza.
Inside, employees will enter a towering two-story lobby with a living wall gracing the south side of the structure. Pittsburgh-based Parkhurst Dining will operate a nearly 5,400-square-foot restaurant — the eStore Cafe — in the lower lobby, which also will include a state-of-the-art FNB branch.
The upper lobby will feature two retail spaces, including a restaurant with a large outdoor seating area that will serve lunch and dinner. Mr. Buccini said his team is in “advanced conversations” with an unnamed restaurateur for a late winter opening.
An outdoor kiosk — “almost like a permanent food truck” — will be leased to community members to operate.
Elevators in the upper lobby will take employees and visitors to their floors. Much of the experience will be touchless, with employees being able to use their badges or perhaps even their cell phones to navigate the building.
The tower was built with the pandemic in mind. There are two systems to purify the air. Amenities were tailored to take into account changing work patterns and employee needs over the last few years.
That’s no more evident than on the fifth floor, which features six conference rooms of various sizes, three rooms to do Zoom sessions, a club room for informal gatherings, and a kitchen/cafe area.
Open to all employees, the floor also features an outdoor plaza that overlooks the arena site with views of the Hill District to the east and PPG Paints Arena and beyond to the south.
There’s also a large open area filled with chairs where employees can grab coffee in the morning or take a few minutes to escape from the pressures of the day. Mr. Buccini said the space was designed to mimic hotel lobbies and to make office work more attractive to people.
“To get them in here, you really want to have a space that is conducive to the way we work, which is more open, which is more collaborative, that allows you to use all of the technologies that we have today,” he said.
A fitness center with state-of-the-art equipment and lockers and showers on the north side of the building round out the fifth floor amenities.
Long before construction started, redevelopment of the 28-acre site was the subject of a lengthy tug-of-war with Hill residents and neighborhood groups that led to the crafting of a community collaboration and implementation agreement.
That accord set standards for minority hiring and business participation, wealth building, and revenues to be diverted back to other parts of the Hill for economic development initiatives.
As part of the tower construction, FNB advanced nearly $7.2 million in anticipated tax revenues to be used for such purposes.
In addition, Mr. Buccini and Bomani Howze, Buccini Pollin vice president of development for the greater Pittsburgh area, said that more than $44 million has been paid out to minority- and women-owned businesses which have worked on the FNB project.
Of that amount, about $27.5 million has gone to Black-owned firms.
“This was the hardest part of the project and the thing that we are most proud of in this project because we literally went out to try to create capacity building,” Mr. Buccini said.
Mr. Howze said, for example, that the firm doing the landscaping outside the building is Black-owned. Some of the minority contractors who got their start on the FNB project now are working at PPG Paints Arena or in other places.
“That’s the human side of what this building means,” Mr. Buccini said.
FNB also provided $2 million so that minority- and women-owned businesses could get lines of credit of up to $100,000 to help them get going.
In his statement, Mr. Delie said the tower’s construction is expected to exceed the goals of minority and women’s participation of 30% and 15%, respectively, and approach $50 million in contracts paid to such businesses.
“The Penguins are very proud to work with our partners at FNB to deliver an exciting new skyscraper to the Pittsburgh skyline, and we are excited that the project was completed with historic levels of small and M/WBE business participation, and generated millions of direct investment into the adjacent Hill District neighborhood,” added Kevin Acklin, the hockey team’s president of business operations.
With FNB Financial Center now just about open for business, Buccin Pollin, which was hired by the Penguins to develop the 28-acre site, will turn its attention to two parcels directly across from PPG Paints Arena.
Mr. Buccini said the goal is to fill both with office buildings even though that sector has struggled the longest coming out of the pandemic.
However, he stressed that the next office building likely won’t be constructed until the FNB Financial Center is full. And it will probably involve “a larger tenant that maybe wants their own building or most of a new building,” he added.
K&L Gates, which is now located Downtown and which has been searching for office space, is believed to be one of those potentially interested in the arena site.
Meanwhile, Mr. Buccini said that construction of a $64 million live music venue planned for a parcel next to FNB tower is “just weeks” from getting started. The 4,500-person facility will be built and operated by Live Nation.
At the top part of the Lower Hill site closest to Crawford Square, the Penguins still have about 370 units of housing planned in a first phase. Mr. Buccini said nothing probably will happen there until at least the first quarter of next year.
Right now, the developer is focused on getting FNB Financial Center up and running and everyone moved in, he noted.
“This has been the hardest thing we’ve ever done. But oftentimes the hardest thing is the best thing and the thing you’re most proud of,” he said.
First Published: October 14, 2024, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: October 14, 2024, 7:28 p.m.
