Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Developer scraps Oakland hotel plan, sells property to CMU
Pittsburgh Business Times:: "Museum Park Hotel LP, a partnership led by developer Brinton Motheral which has been working to develop a new hotel on a former gas station in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood, has decided to drop the plan and sell its property to its biggest neighbor and opponent of its project, Carnegie Mellon University."
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7 comments:
This article is great at showing how much money that CMU is willing to pay for some peace of land that is so small. I think that CMU is some what strand. I would have thought that they would have wonted this other group to develop this land.. also I did not know that land in Pittsburgh was that much. Also that CMU would be willing to pay that much for that. Also this article was great at filling a gap in my thoughts of that peace of land ever since I move to CMU I wondered if that would stay that way or if it would change and turn into something useful. I am glad to hear that something might be done with that land some time soon. So this article was great.
i was extremely surprised that that abandoned gas station was destined to become a hotel. It seems like a very small piece of land for a hotel if I am thinking of the right place (next to PHI?) While i know that CMU is buying up all of the land nearby ( the old italian place/thrift store was recently bought i think...) it seems like it is getting farther from our campus. That spot could be some offices that are farther away now like the disability office. It did seem like an exorbinant price to pay considering what the land in pittsburhg would normally go for, but hey, they really wanted it. My only concern is why they are spending that much now, when they keep asking for more money and cutting departments' budgets like the course center for upper class physics courses... I'd rather see the money go towards academics.
Though I know for a fact I have no say in what CMU does and doesn't do with their money, buying up all of Forbes avenue doesn't really seem like a logical thing to do. How often do you see schools confining themselves to one area and improving upon what is already there? Not often enough, since the new mantra for every business is expand, expand, expand.
Although the new land could be used for good purposes (perhaps we could get a hockey rink? A new dorm? More student lounge area?), I am more for the improvement of what are already colossal pieces of architecture sitting pretty across from one another on the cut.
I wish CMU would be more open about their plans for this land, especially if willing to spend that much money to acquire it. It does seem logical for that bit of land to go to CMU, as it is starting to expand, but it also isn't completely practical in its proximity to campus.I doubt it would become a main building of some sort. I feel that the idea of writing a letter is pointless, because almost anything would be better for business than an abandoned gas station. Developing that land in any way is sure to bring more interest to the street.
WHATTTTT? I sort of can't believe this kind of money was spent on that kind of land. I guess I'm speaking from my upstate New York concept of land prices, but still. I hope they do something incredibly impressive with that property. With all the money they spent at the beginning of the summer in terms of land acquisition, I haven't heard of anything very exciting going on with those properties. However, being in Purnell all the time, I guess I'm not so up on the CMU development news. I'd be interested to see if we as Sophomores will get to see the benefit of any of this spending during our time here.
I'm surprised that the developers owning the old gas station finally sold it to CMU, because I've heard about that plan to build a hotel there for quite some time. I guess CMU was finally willing to pay enough to get that piece of land, or the developers were finally done trying to fight to build their hotel.
It is very interesting to read through the 2002 campus master plan and also to hear other comments about plans for expanding the university, but it would be nice to see these in a new/updated master plan, especially after we've purchased the land on Forbes. Part of the current master plan is to better connect the main campus to the Mellon Institute on 5th ave, which means expanding CMU's presence down forbes and craig.
The computer science side of campus has been incredibly excited about this. The reason CMU has been willing to spend this magnitude of funds on this tiny patch of land actually makes some sense; they're catering to Google. Google's current Pittsburgh offices are in the CIC - a Carnegie Mellon building. However, CMU designed the building whereas Google prefers to design things for themselves. Google threatened to relocate their offices to a new complex, which would hugely detriment CMU's relations with the company. Instead, CMU is purchasing the land across the ravine to build a new office structure as an add-on to the CIC, this time with the input of Google.
Google is going to rule the world one day and I for one welcome our new, minimalist overlords.
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