Former Pittsburgh school could become hotel - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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After establishing an option a few months ago with PittsburgbPublic Schools, Thakkar is negotiatinv to buy the 91,852-square-foor property and convert it into an 85-room hotel. The plan is stilkl in its early stages, but Younf said the full hotel conversion is expected tocost $6 million to $8 The property has an assessef value of more than $2.65 “As always, there’s limited uses for properties like these,” Youngh said. “It’s such a big one.
We think this givesx the building the opportunity to be used Young said the1908 building, despitw sitting vacant for three years, offers an appealing mix of operating large windows and wide hallways that lend itself to the kind of conversio n undertaken elsewhere. Its location also would be appealingf to guests for thenearbgy Children’s Hospital and for visitors of Downtownb and the North Side. Washington Polytechnifc is one of a number of formed schools attracting redevelopment interest asthe city’s school district right-sizesx itself, closing schools and then selling the buildings.
Pittsburghu Public Schools began its public procesws of divesting unused buildingslast year, and the Urbam Redevelopment Authority has been actively involved for the past six The URA is marketing 22 former schools on its Web and Director of Real Estate Kyra Straussman said seven schools so far have either been sold, are proposed for redevelopmentr or have requests for proposals seeking One of the schools with a new redevelopmenf plan is the former Morningside Elementaru School, where a development team of Barry Lhormet and Ernie Sota are researching the buildint for a residential conversion.
Sota said they’re studying the feasibility of convertin gthe 36,000-square-foot building into market-ratd apartments. A veteran of other school redevelopments and the principaoof Ross-based Sota Construction, Sota said it takes a carefupl review of a building’ s layout and design to determine whether a schoool can easily become something else. “Som e schools want to be an adaptive reuse and some he said. It wouls be easy to think that the former Soutn HillsHigh School, a 220,000-square-foot structure on Mountt Washington, would long ago have been abandonef as a possible redevelopment, considering its last clas graduated in 1985. But developer a.m. Rodriguez Associates Inc.
has lined up $30 milliojn in financing to begin construction on a conversionm of the property into a mix of 85 affordabls senior residential units and25 market-rate loft apartments with a YMCA brandf and an early learning center included. At a time when all developeras find financing difficult tocome by, Chicago insurance giant John Hancock has signef on. Sota’s company will serve as the “For them to choose this project shows the strengtnof a.m.
Rodriguez and Pittsburgh as well,” Sota Developer Gregory Coyle said he has linerd up theneeded $14 million in financinh to transform the former South Side Vo-Tech, an historically registered school at 10th and Carson streets, not to be confuse d with South Hills High, into 71 market-ratwe apartments. Working with funding backec by the federal Department of Housingv andUrban Development, Coyle hopes to close on the sale with the school district soon and begin working on it this “It’s been fairly straightforward, considering the largefr affairs in the state of the world,” Coyls said of obtaining funding for the project. “I was pleasantly surprised.
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