Pittsburgh Greenhouse

After writing a handwritten letter to the owner of 329 Hancock St., I got a response back. The owner is interested in selling the property!

Time to investigate the possibility of getting financing up and running again. ~BAS

Rumors are circulating that 329 Hancock may be up for sale, so I visited with a PNC Mortgage rep in Squirell Hill this morning. Got my details out onto the cloud.

We crunched a traditional FHA loan at 100K as feasible given income, debt-to-asset ratio, etc. Pretty awful outlook for me; gotta keep paying down credit cards & saving cash.

Take Note: PNC won't even sell you a native PNC product unless you have, in saving, 10% of the mortgage principal in cash, in addition to the closing costs.

The City/URA have begun to sell lots through a new program and new address outside of the normal channels. http://www.buyintheburgh.com/ lists the properties by ward; examine Ward 6. This week, I will reach out to PNC about new construction loans, and/or property acquisition loans (to avoid property buy up by slum lords, etc.). A quick cost/benefit analysis of the properties is discouraging, based on the industry standard $125/sqft infill construction costs.

Two quick notes: I'm helping Polish Hill and the City of Pittsburgh apply for grant funding through the US Fed HUD's "NSP2", or Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2. The funding can be used for neighborhood groups to purchase and develop residential property, or pay for part of a mixed use project. I'm also working with SCA members on Polish Hill to develop a new urban garden on the property adjacent to the Blue Dog Apartments. http://digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/output.avi for a time lapse photography analysis of cloud coverage on the lot.

All hope is not lost; I am still working with Terry Doloughty and the PHCA Housing Committee to utilize the VPWG Land Bank Process.

Having been sold for nearly 6 months, 329 Hancock St still sits untouched with no active building permits. The new property owner has not paid the taxes, secured the facility, or applied to BBI for building permits.

LeDonne Construction of Pittsburgh's North Hills

The new target properties for my project will be mixed-use commercial/residential, so a shadow corporation and a business loan instead of a mortgage will be required.

Another Polish Hill property under consideration for redevelopment was sold at the 3TB/City/County Sheriff Sale. Terry believes that it may have fallen to a Section 8 landlord. The building(s) were tentatively slated to go to a local resident and re-developer/contractor friendly to PHCA.

Unfortunately, in addition to potentially becoming a section 8 property on the main business district, this also abolishes any such hope of converting the property back to mixed user commercial/residential.

PHCA has some plans in motion to potentially counteract this move.

Thanks to Terry Doloughty, PHCA, the PCRG VPWG, the URA, and the City Finance Dept. After 4-5 weeks of inquiry, the discovery process for the new owner turned up a name: Ledonne Construction. They bought two properts at the September sherif sale: 329 Hanock and 3212 Downing St. Google Maps puts them on Route 19 in the North Hills / Perrysville area (near where I grew up in Ingomar, PA). They are on LinkedIn.com but outside of my network. PCRG/URA was nice enough to query the entire county for properties owned by this group: several properties in Lawrenceville and Penn-Main.

I'll drink to that. More details in the AM. http://www.pahouse.com/pr/042111208.asp

After meeting with Stephanie Cipriani and Maryellen Sullivan of PNC Bank this morning, I'm feeling optimistic that financing options may still be available for residents of Polish Hil. Specifically, the meeting resulted in the following

• PNC's acquisition of National City will not adversely affect charitable projects run by National City, in fact it will bolster them (Per PNC)
• PNC's community development financing options, under a separate LLC in conjunction with Wells Fargo, are still available to qualified borrowers under certain conditions:

So as a quick afterthought to San Francisco: On my way back from Pitt Intl Airport, I stopped at Ikea to buy the heaviest down blanket they sell. I noted that pedestrians in Robinson still have precarious provisions.

I consider this taxpayer neglect by affluent white suburban municipalities within Allegheny County tantamount to "Neuvo Racism" (a la subtle discrimination of minorities).

Anyway, having had been part of that discrimination in 2005, and having no progress been made in three years, I think its time to ask the local media/press to investigate.