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A new 4,500-capacity Live Nation performance venue will now be the opening act for the next project by the development team of the Pittsburgh Penguins on the Lower Hill.
Executives for the Pittsburgh Penguins and its development partner the Buccini/Pollin Group detailed the major revision in plans for what was approved to go forward as a garage-and-venue project slated for Lot E on the Lower Hill master plan projected to cost in the range of $110 million to build.
Yet that project, approved nearly two years ago, now faces different business demands today, explained Craig Dunham, a senior vice president of development for the Pittsburgh Penguins, during a Zoom community meeting on the Lower Hill project.
"Originally the project was set up so it was a garage project first then the venue would follow," said Dunham, adding, that now "Live Nation very much wants to start construction this fall."
The decision to revise the approach for the companion Lot E projects has resulted in the Penguins development team submitting new take down notices with the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority and the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh. Dunham said the development team will provide a briefing to the URA board at its upcoming May meeting with the goal to have the changes up for approval at the meeting in June.
The process will now require subdividing Lot E into two separate sites for the projects. Live Nation is expected to own the venue in partnership with Fenway Sports Group, owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
"Essentially, it's a re-sequencing of the two projects," he said.
The goal is to start construction on the concert venue by the end of the year to be able to open it in the first quarter of 2026.
"Live Nation's team will be introduced in the community in the coming weeks," added Dunham.
He expects a total of 1,900 spaces in surface lots currently available will satisfy the parking demands for the new performance venue.
When exactly the garage component of the plan will be built was not detailed for a facility approved to total 900 spaces along with 10,000 square feet of retail space.
To be sure, the project is as tethered to a variety of community benefits and funding arrangements for the rest of the Hill as was the FNB Financial Center office tower project, now 85% complete. For example, funding generated from the garage-and-venue project was expected to go toward a housing stabilization fund.
The projects are expected to go forward under the established commitments.
The performance venue going forward first will include in a $2 ticket surcharge to fund components of the New Granada Theater project in the Hill.
Dunham and colleagues Boris Kaplan, senior vice president for Buccini/Pollin, Bomani Howze, a Pittsburgh-based vice president, and Kimberly Ellis, director of community, arts and culture, provided a thorough update on the overall development's progress in minority- and woman-owned hiring and contracting as well as the funding allocated to the broader community.
"We're very proud of what the project has delivered so far," said Kaplan. "We look forward to getting more shovels into the ground."
Howze also provided a brief update on plans to develop 340 units of housing on Lot B on the Lower Hill site, with OLMEC Development, for which he is president and CEO, recently hiring a design team consisting of Perkins Eastman and Robert P. Madison.
He said the development team continues to explore various funding mechanisms under which to pursue a project on the site.