Pittsburgh OKs Lawrenceville apartment complex despite aesthetic concerns

Mel Ngami skewered the renderings of a proposed apartment complex in Lawrenceville, calling them “very strongly depressing.”

Peter Quintanilla, his colleague on the Pittsburgh Planning Commission, panned the design as a large box that “looks too flat.”

Despite the commissioners’ misgivings about the looks of the planned 5-story apartment building — mostly gray with some wood and stone accents — they joined their colleagues Tuesday in unanimously approving the project anyway.

While the commissioners might not have appreciated the building’s looks, they approved of the developers’ efforts to make apartments available for low-income tenants.

Washington, D.C.-based Dalian Development outlined plans to designate as affordable housing more than 30 of the building’s planned 334 units.

Striking a compromise with the developers, who suggested that any criticism of the building’s appearance was merely a difference of opinion, commissioners gave their approval with one condition: that the development team would work with city staff to consider potential tweaks to the architectural design.

At five stories, the proposed building on the 450,000-square-foot site would be larger than many of the smaller rowhouses and shops in the neighborhood.

Other conditions, based on community feedback, will require the developer to provide an on-site contact person during construction and abide by an affordable housing requirement in effect in the neighborhood under the city’s inclusionary zoning policy.

Warehouses now on the 39th Street site will be demolished to make way for the new apartment building, which will be constructed atop a mostly underground parking garage with space for 245 vehicles. Another 55 vehicles will fit in an additional surface lot, said Jeff Young, an architect with Pittsburgh-based Perkins Eastman.

There also will be 118 bike parking spaces.

According to a presentation shown Tuesday to the commission, the developer plans to begin construction early next year. Work is estimated to take about 27 months.

Sarah Trbovic, executive director of community group Lawrenceville Corp., said the plans were well received in the neighborhood, but she acknowledged concerns that the development might create traffic and parking headaches.