Category: default || By jt3y

"OK, wiseguy," I heard you say after yesterday's Almanac, "if you're so smart, what would you do with the People's Building?"

I'm glad you asked that, hypothetical straw man that I'm using to set up my argument.

It strikes me that Our Fair City is stuck with two white elephants (no, not the White Elephant) right now: The People's Building and the closed Lysle Boulevard parking garage.

The People's Building lost its primary reason for being when the doctors, lawyers and insurance agents that made up most of its tenants bought their own buildings out in White Oak and Versailles. (A soft real-estate market and low interest rates will do that.) Combine that with the lack of free on-street parking nearby, and a building like the People's Building has a tough time competing.

The Lysle garage was hit by several whammies --- first, some of its most reliable tenants were the employees of National Works, just across the railroad tracks. Some 7,000 men and women were employed at the plant in its heyday. With the mill's closure, and the demolition of most of the buildings for the RIDC Industrial Park, the employees of the remaining businesses can now be accommodated on-site. Second, the decline of the Downtown business district (coincident, if not directly caused by, the mill's decline) eliminated much of the need for parking. Third, the garage needs significant repairs that weren't cost effective to accommodate the handful of cars still using it --- especially when plenty of other parking capacity exists Downtown.

Now, the Almanac is on record as thinking the garage should be purchased by or given to Port Authority Transit for use as a park-and-ride ... I figure that rehabbing the old girl has to be cheaper than the $21 million PAT spent to build a garage in South Hills Village.

Since we have a big empty office building across Lysle Boulevard, let's go further.



One of the things that chased the doctors, lawyers, insurance agents and other tenants out of the People's Building was parking --- or at least that's one of the excuses. Well, here's a parking garage catty-corner across the street.

But wait --- decades of parking at malls and shopping centers have conditioned Americans, frankly, to feel that they shouldn't have to walk more than a hundred feet, or get their tootsies wet, when they go from their car to an office or store. They certainly don't want to cross a state highway.

So, let's take a page from The Waterfront in Homestead, and from any number of cities (Rochester, N.Y., for instance) and connect the garage to the People's Building with a spiffy looking pedestrian bridge. I'm thinking of something that's mostly glass, but trimmed in Russian iron and circular steel products, to celebrate the city's heritage. And a nice, polished metal sign that said, "Welcome to McKeesport" would be a handsome gateway to motorists passing through OFC to boot.

And let's put a bridge and staircase from the other side of the garage, too, across the CSX railroad tracks and into the RIDC park.

Renovating the garage has to be at least a $3 million project, I'm guessing, at least. Maybe more. Assuming that it's free to park-and-ride customers, then it ought to be divided between the city Redevelopment Authority, the RIDC, and the Port Authority. And it seems to me that since the federal and state governments are so big these days on "inter-government cooperation," then there ought to be grant money available for something like this. Possibly private grants, too.

Now, there are some problems to overcome. For instance, the People's Building is not directly across the street from the garage, the pedestrian bridge would have to "dog leg." Air rights would have to be negotiated with the owners of the building that houses CVS drug store. Permission would have to be gained from PennDOT, because Lysle Boulevard is a state highway. And I have no idea what the bridge would cost.

Still, I have to imagine that all this could be worked out, if someone had the will. It'd be a hell of a lot easier than building the Mon-Fayette Expressway, or maglev trains, and look how much energy we're expending on those. (And as we'll see soon, it will have a better, and quicker, payoff to the city than either of those.)

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So, once we get people from their cars to the People's Building, what are they going to find? The same old cramped, 1900s vintage offices?

Not on your autographed photo of George H. Lysle. First, the elevator is going to be upgraded to comply with modern standards for handicapped accessiblity. Maybe we're even going to install a freight elevator.

It may be worth demolishing the empty retail space next to the People's Building (formerly Ruben's Furniture, and most recently a D&K store) to put the freight entrance there, and give trucks a place to unload.

Next, heavy-duty high-speed Internet capability is going to be brought to the building by one of the big network providers, because they're going to be promised an exclusive contract to serve the tenants. Internet and phone cables are going to be pulled up through the elevator shaft.

A generator and an uninterruptible power supply is going to be installed down in the basement, where the bank vault used to be, and special electrical outlets are going to be installed throughout the building.

Then, starting floor by floor (in order to conserve capital), the old wooden and glass office partitions are going to be removed (carefully), and the floors are going to be brought up to modern standards. (We're going to save those partitions, because some tenants are going to want them to lend an appropriate "vintage" atmosphere to their offices.) That's going to include spiffy new windows, forced air heat and cooling for each floor, along with new fluorescent lights and vinyl tile and carpet.

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Now, we've got an office building perfectly suited for use by any company, office, organization or firm that needs reliable computer service (practically everyone these days) but doesn't need to be in downtown Picksberg.

Such renovations are going to cost millions of dollars, of course --- $1 million a floor, I'll bet --- but even with those costs built in, the rent is still going to be considerably cheaper than rent in Picksberg. The rent will probably be less than constructing a new building out in Monroeville or something like that, and thus ideal for start-up companies.

To serve our new tenants, the first floor is going to house some type of retail operation that caters to small businesses. Maybe Kinko's or The UPS Store. Maybe a Sir Speedy printing franchise ... or perhaps a local printer. And on the mezzanine, we put a snack room with vending machines, in hopes that (eventually) a small restaurant or lunch cart moves in.

Finally, access to the upper floors of the building will be by key card only. And we'll stick a guard at the parking garage walkway at least 14 hours a day, mainly in the afternoon and overnight. That makes the building secure, and helps mitigate against the lingering perception that Downtown is "unsafe."

Is there a certain amount of risk to all of this? Of course. Would it take a lot of work by the area's politicians, banks and funding organizations? Absolutely.

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The alternatives are to allow a big, empty building to continue to sit at one of the busiest intersections in town. Or worse --- to tear down a 100-year-old landmark, and leave the city with another empty lot Downtown. The existing empty lots don't seem to be too marketable ... the lot where the Memorial Theater used to stand has now been empty for 20 years.

The benefits? Well, you'd increase the value of the building, thus generating property taxes for the city. You'd fill it with people who pay occupational privilege taxes to the city. Assuming that part of the Lysle Boulevard garage remains paid parking, you'd make it a revenue-generating asset again, instead of a liability.

And if you have several 100 people working the People's Building, and parking in the Lysle garage to take the bus, you wouldn't have so many empty storefronts along Fifth Avenue ... you'd need the kinds of small businesses that spring up near office buildings. Fast food restaurants, card stores, clothing shops, and the like. You'd also raise the value of all of the surrounding buildings.

Am I crazy? Possibly, but I don't think this proposal is proof of it. Your comments, criticisms, and catcalls or welcome. And if anyone from the city, RIDC or the Downtown McKeesport Association happens to see this, and thinks that all or part of it is worthwhile, feel free to adapt the ideas as you see fit. I won't even ask for any money or credit.

A couple of rides on the new elevator would be nice, though.

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To Do This Weekend: The ArtSpace 303 gallery, 303 E. Eighth Ave., Homestead, hosts "The Inside of Numbers," a sculpture installation by artist Sarah Walko. The show opens with a reception at 7 p.m. Saturday and continues through Jan. 28. Call (412) 326-0100 ... St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church, 1907 Eden Park Blvd., hosts the Ukrainian Cultural Trust Choir at 3 p.m. Sunday. Call (412) 678-2206.