North Side Redevelopment Well On Its Way

North Side's Garden Theater

Throughout the 1990s, one building after another on the Federal Street and North Avenue corridors of the Central Northside (Mexican War Streets) went dark because of the Garden Theater's then-status as a porn movie house.  Now, 23 years after the first effort to declare the corridor blighted for redevelopment, the wheels are starting to turn.   It was almost five years ago that the city's Urban Redevelopment Authority bought the theater for $1.1 million and six years ago that the Supreme Court made its long-awaited decision that exonerated the URA for trying to seize it.

Nakama, a chain of Japanese restaurants, recently completed a lease agreement to open a second Pittsburgh location in the former Masonic Hall beside the Garden Theater.  Between eight and 12 apartments are planned for the upper three floors.  There are arched windows reminiscent of Moorish architecture overlooking Allegheny Commons Park.  This type of building should prove to be premier living space with occupancy expected by summer of 2013.

Franjo Construction Co. has begun to stabilize two small late-19th century buildings at 1113 and 1115 Federal.  The basement beams and floor joists need to be shored up and new roofs need to be installed.
Big beautiful cast iron columns and tin ceiling panels were discovered when the buildings were first cleaned out.

Across the street, Lawrenceville developer Bill Barron has been stabilizing a former hot dog shop for its redevelopment as a proposed taqueria.  Lease agreements for two other restaurants along North Avenue have been signed by owners of the Round Corner Cantina in Lawrenceville and the former Firehouse Lounge in the Strip. There's also interest from a yoga studio and photography studio for the upstairs of the theater itself.

The best-case scenario is there are shovels in the ground by early summer on redevelopment of the adjacent Masonic Hall, Garden Theater and former Apache Lounge.  Philadelphia-based Zukin Realty is redeveloping about a dozen blighted buildings the URA spent more than $5 million amassing since 1994. The buildings are all in the block within Federal, North, Eloise and Reddour streets.
The facade and front half of the Garden Theater, the last nickelodeon-style specimen in the city and one of the last in the country, will be saved.

Parking for 25-30 cars will be carved out behind what remains of the theater. The developers are working on an agreement for additional parking for residents of the Masonic Hall in a 500-space parking garage on Federal.

The first rehabbed retail property in the two corridors was a formerly blighted bar that had been vacant for at least two decades.  As that rehab progressed, a stunning building with iron doorway columns and arched side windows was revealed.  That building is now a Crazy Mocha coffeehouse.  And beside that, an empty building was turned into the Deli on North.

Those two and the ongoing rehabilitation of the former Toula's Hot Dog Shop on Federal have received funds from the URA's Streetface Program.  The momentum began with completion of a new Carnegie Library branch late in 2009 and the rapid sale of 23 Federal Hill townhouses, with 19 more to follow.

The redevelopment of the neighborhood is long-awaited but extremely exciting.  And it is definitely now in high gear.

Metro Pittsburgh Real Estate
Mexican War Streets
North Side