Pitts Buys Twentieth Century Club
- Thread starter 9nationalchampionships
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Yep, this doesn't make up for not acquiring the Pittsburgh Athletic Association building but it helps!
Walnut Cap bought it......that would have been the 2nd best building on campus behind the CoL
Twentieth Century club is beautiful OLD building;I
was in it last year for a faculty lecture, and you would think you were in the late 19th century!
was in it last year for a faculty lecture, and you would think you were in the late 19th century!
So, a few thoughts here. This is obviously the smart move for Pitt to buy the property for a bunch of reasons. They've missed out on a few of these opportunities (some of that's on Pitt, others haven't been), and hit on some others, but any time you can acquire historic properties in Oakland, they should expend every effort in doing so.
Beyond that, it's a little interesting to think about how this property fits in with the rest of campus. Right now, you think about that section of Oakland and you have four buildings that come pretty close to doing the same thing - Gardner Steel Conference Center, the University Club, O'Hara Student Center, and now the Twentieth Century Club. In other words, you've got four relatively low-density buildings that have pretty nice ballroom/meeting facilities, and maybe have some offices or other student or faculty-facing uses, but without too much in terms of classrooms or other academic use.
The Master Plan, as we've discussed before, contemplates repurposing the footprints of Gardner Steel and O'Hara for other, more academic-focused structures in the long-term future. And Pitt has recently announced plans to build a hotel on the parking lot adjacent and connected to the University Club. We've discussed that Pitt would be foolish to not at least preserve the facades of Gardner Steel and O'Hara, but IMO it's a tremendously unwise use of space to maintain yet another meeting/conference facility in the Twentieth Century Club if you're keeping the other ones for that same purpose.
So what's that mean? Obviously, there is utility and wisdom in a school-operated meeting/conference/ballroom facility, especially one that's located nearby the hotels that have opened in that area. So IMO, the best use of these parcels going forward is to preserve, renovate, and maintain the Twentieth Century Club, with its tremendous ballroom, strictly as a conference/event space. At that point, I think the wisest move for the university going forward is to fully repurpose the footprints of the O'Hara and Gardner Steel buildings - with facade preservation and period-appropriate architecture, similar to Nordenberg Hall - into academic-centered space, whether that's classrooms, labs, academic offices, etc., more fitting for the rest of that O'Hara corridor.
Looking forward to Paco jumping in here.
Beyond that, it's a little interesting to think about how this property fits in with the rest of campus. Right now, you think about that section of Oakland and you have four buildings that come pretty close to doing the same thing - Gardner Steel Conference Center, the University Club, O'Hara Student Center, and now the Twentieth Century Club. In other words, you've got four relatively low-density buildings that have pretty nice ballroom/meeting facilities, and maybe have some offices or other student or faculty-facing uses, but without too much in terms of classrooms or other academic use.
The Master Plan, as we've discussed before, contemplates repurposing the footprints of Gardner Steel and O'Hara for other, more academic-focused structures in the long-term future. And Pitt has recently announced plans to build a hotel on the parking lot adjacent and connected to the University Club. We've discussed that Pitt would be foolish to not at least preserve the facades of Gardner Steel and O'Hara, but IMO it's a tremendously unwise use of space to maintain yet another meeting/conference facility in the Twentieth Century Club if you're keeping the other ones for that same purpose.
So what's that mean? Obviously, there is utility and wisdom in a school-operated meeting/conference/ballroom facility, especially one that's located nearby the hotels that have opened in that area. So IMO, the best use of these parcels going forward is to preserve, renovate, and maintain the Twentieth Century Club, with its tremendous ballroom, strictly as a conference/event space. At that point, I think the wisest move for the university going forward is to fully repurpose the footprints of the O'Hara and Gardner Steel buildings - with facade preservation and period-appropriate architecture, similar to Nordenberg Hall - into academic-centered space, whether that's classrooms, labs, academic offices, etc., more fitting for the rest of that O'Hara corridor.
Looking forward to Paco jumping in here.
in the 21st century, we bought a building that looks like the 19th century, called the 20th century?
Could a basketball arena fit there and then tear down the Pete, va hospital, and Fitzgerald for a football stadium. Move the Cathedral to upper campus. Nuff said
Not sure what Pitt has in mind for this building but at over 54,000 sq ft it allows movement from one building to this building for classrooms, offices, labs, etc. to free up land elsewhere.
Movr the cathedral. Now that’s outside the box. We could first develop some huge helicopters to pick it up. We could place it in the open field beside the Pete. A football stadium could then be built off bigalow.
Office space. Pitt had originally planned to lease out a bunch of space to temporarily house the LRDC folks after that building is demolished, but the rumor is that Apple is now going to take most of the space in the building for office space.
First, this is great news. A no brainer. And I agree, doesn't make up for whiffing on the PAA, but probably less competition for this one. So one in the + and - column for Gallagher. I also think they should have taken Schenley High for conversion into student and/or faculty housing, but I digress and that is on Nordenberg. And who could forget the Syria Mosque, where Pitt was outbid by UPMC (and Pitt wasn't aware that they were bidding against them). What a waste that was.
I agree with you almost entirely. The Nordenberg administration, and earlier administrations, did a great job scooping up these former social clubs as they became available. Pitt has been praised, and has won awards for its repurposement of these buildings which has almost always preserved and restored their historical and architectural features. It has made the campus more beautiful and more notable, and provides for a more impressive learning environment while maintaining the historic character of the neighborhood. I truly believe, building for building, you'll be hard pressed to find another college that can match Pitt. It helps make up for the urban street grid that negates the possibility of a traditional closed campus that so many students envision when looking for their dream schools.
The list of former social clubs aquired by Pitt is longer than one might expect:
- Gardner Steele Conference Center is the former Central Turnverein (German Club)
- Bellefield Hall is the former Young Men's & Women's Hebrew Association
- Alumni Hall is the former Masonic Temple
- Eureka Building, I believe was a former Masonic building but I don't know the details
- The University Club, well, is the former private University Club
- O'Hara Street Student Center is the former Concordia Club (Jewish Club)
- The former Allegheny Health Department Building is the Croatian Fraternal Union (slated for demolition but held up in nominated for historic status)
I agree there is a duplication of meeting/conference space that may not be warranted, but the Concordia was repurposed as student union overflow because the WPU was so overcrowded. They Master Plan shows an intent to replace the Concordia Club with a new structure for student use near the union or Posvar (can't remember), so maybe the 20th Century Club takes care of that replacement building need. Regardless, Pitt has seemingly always been incredibly short on conference space. I do not know the current space needs so I can't say what would be duplicative or unnecessary, but let's assume they are somewhat duplicative.
Like you, I have no problem with Pitt creating more high density facilities on the footprints of Gardner Steel, but they should preserve the facade as is done in similar situations in so many other locations that wish to preserve the historic character of the streetscape. There really is nothing in Gardner Steel's interior worth preserving. Just the facade, IMO, and preserving that is not hard to do.
The Concordia Club is a somewhat different story. There are very nice and historic interior spaces with the dark Oak paneling first floor and an impressive balconied ballroom. There are ways to incorporate historic buildings into otherwise completely modern structures, and there are examples of this on campuses all over the country. I believe not just the facade, but these notable interior spaces of the Concordia Club should be largely preserved and incorporated into any new high density structure and could serve as the lobby, study, and main lecture space for that new structure. You can have the best of both worlds, not to mention have historical review commissions and groups endorsing your project as opposed to working against it, and such projects are undertaken regularly elsewhere.
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I think this is brilliant. For one thing, Pitt can convert the space into a hotel to house all those media members who will show up when we restart the "City Game" against Duquesne.
James Conner could do it by himself....only the crowds watching would be an impediment.
Schenley High was never going to be converted to PITT student housing. The residents of Schenley Farms made their opposition to that possibility very clear.
Yea Nornenberg was brilliant in scooping up old properties. Too bad he let the second most important structure on campus get bulldozed without fully understanding
the long term implications.
Yea Nornenberg was brilliant in scooping up old properties. Too bad he let the second most important structure on campus get bulldozed without fully understanding
the long term implications.
The irony is that the ones that yelled the loudest, Madden, Starkey, Benz, Zeise probably didn't even attend the last game or give it any airtime on their respective shows. Zeise probably if he was on immediately post game (it was a Friday night the last one). Madden, no chance. Probably zero chance Starkey did.
I tweeted out something to the effect of: "if all the local media that are so concerned about this rivalry would attend games, neither team would have trouble selling out games".
Zeise did respond he does go to these games and that is not surprising.
Maybe or maybe not. Schenley could have been faculty housing, could been grad-student post-doc housing like was placed on Darragh Street, or even could have house labs or center or entire school of the university. All sorts of possibilities for that one and tons of square feet.
Pitt Stadium should have been designated as a historic landmark, and should have been protected from demolition. I'm not sure how 1990s finances would have played out for athletics in an alternative reality, but it was over as soon as the wrecking ball hit. Same with the Syria Mosque. Logan Armory facade should have been save too, probably part of State Hall's facade as well (at least the wrought iron doors), and obliterating Thaw Hall's main entrance was idiotic. I still wonder what happened to the relief of Asclepius they supposedly saved from Pennsylvania Hall because it would have made a lot of sense to incorporate it into their renovation of Scaife Hall. Trying to avoid going off-track with athletics, but there has been a lack of foresight and historic deference with campus development at different times that would be appalling at other universities.
Since they moved the media last year I can't really speak to that, but in years prior Zeise was at a lot of the basketball games. Starkey and Benz both went on occasion. And Madden hasn't been in the Pete since he did his radio show there the day the building opened. He left at half time and hasn't been back since.
And the Dipping Dots vendors have suffered since.
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