Pitt reaches agreement to buy PAA building
- Thread starter PittMan 72
- Start date
My dad was a bread delivery man working for Tip Top Bread. His route was Oakland including the PAA. He used to bring decks of playing cards home from the PAA
Beautiful building. Now demolish a few brutalist Soviet monuments and Oakland can be beautiful again.
Pitt fixes their prior screw up!
A huge win for Pitt. Good job!
A huge win for Pitt. Good job!
Reposting these images again, because why not?
$12 million. The claim they spent $25 million in renovations (wink wink nudge nudge) so it can appear as if they didn't make a profit.
The purchase also comes with the ground lease for the Oaklander hotel, so there’s an opportunity for some sustainable revenue generation, too.
When I was an undergrad, my fraternity had our alumni reception there the Friday night prior to what I think was a Notre Dame game. Having top shelf drinks with a roomful of pretty successful business men and other alums as a long haired, 19 or 20 year old, was certainly an experience!
Knock down the Oaklander, and a few other buildings and build a stadium on the Syria Mosque site
Just FYI, that $25m figure was the cost that was reported 3 years ago when they were still trying to find tenants.
I'm thinking that was really not much of an exaggeration.
You can see some of the results of the restoration here:
From Fine Art Restoration's webpage:
Fine Art Architectural Restoration was contracted in 2020 to restore the Main Hall ceiling. The painted plaster surface was gray with embedded dust and soot. In addition, the decorative paint was flaking badly, including on the uniquely painted rosette panels.
Working from scissor-lift baskets, the lifting and flaking paint was spray consolidated with water-based adhesive and set-down with heated tacking irons. Once the paint layer was stabilized, the surface was brushed with a mild, alkaline, water-based cleaning solution and then rinsed with pure water. After cleaning, based on historic research, the coffer decorative motif was adjusted: an ivory-toned paint was applied to the coffer moldings, and a middle band of egg and dart molding was reinforced with gold paint.
The remainder of the moldings, shields, and rosettes were cleaned and inpainted with preservation-grade commercial and artistic paints. After inpainting, the surfaces were coated with isolating varnishes. The result of the treatment is a fanciful, colorful art nouveau masterpiece that has come to light after decades of decay.
See: https://fineartarchitectural.com/project_category/interiors/
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I think Walnut probably bought the building, understood how to renovate and get money back through tax credits and historical preservation credits, and then sold it to Pitt, thus making a profit but also at a cheaper overall investment for Pitt.
Seems like the reporting is that they’re gonna figure it out, but they’re expecting close to every department at the university to request to be moved there lol. The opportunity to buy presented itself more than the university buying it with a purpose in mind.
It's gotta be a high profile use that make sense for student use...and some place you tour prospective students. In other words, the last thing you want to shove in there is some obscure academic program like women's studies or the Spanish department.
I think you could look at making it the new home of Pitt admissions...moving it over from Alumni Hall...even more convenient since it is adjacent to the Oaklander where a lot of prospective students might stay. But is it worth the move from Alumni Hall which is only a few yards away?
Could you make part of it into a higher end student cafe/dining facility...sort of like another union extension?
Move the Global Hub from Posvar into there? One of Pitt's pushes is to have more student study abroad so that could be a showcase and a definite stop on a prospective student tour.
Student registration or other services?
Special collections/art gallery?
Some combination of the above?
I think you could look at making it the new home of Pitt admissions...moving it over from Alumni Hall...even more convenient since it is adjacent to the Oaklander where a lot of prospective students might stay. But is it worth the move from Alumni Hall which is only a few yards away?
Could you make part of it into a higher end student cafe/dining facility...sort of like another union extension?
Move the Global Hub from Posvar into there? One of Pitt's pushes is to have more student study abroad so that could be a showcase and a definite stop on a prospective student tour.
Student registration or other services?
Special collections/art gallery?
Some combination of the above?
I'd make it another student union type building. It already has the bowling lanes and basketball court. Maybe you put in a movie theater, video game area, higher end cafeteria like you said, ballroom, etc.
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