Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Paramount building ideal for tax-producing office space

Concurrent with the historic nomination of the Paramount Pictures Film Exchange, YPA engaged a developer to come up with a development scheme for the reuse of the site.

What was developed was a 431-page proposal to convert the 1926 structure into a LEED-certified green medical clinic. The project would entail a $2.6 million rehab and build-out. Ultimately, the medical clinic would produce monthly rental income of $15,540 and $33,632 in cash flow after year three ($131,087 in cash flow in year 9).

YPA and its developer's offer to purchase the building and create the medical clinic was ignored by the owner. “The building's location and lack of parking does not make it a good place for anything but a warehouse," said David Montegomery, one of UPMC’s lawyers, at a recent Historic Review Commission hearing. "This simply is a pie-in-the-sky dream that this is going to become a public destination point."


He neglects to mention, however, that with Mercy hospital a few blocks away, the location would be ideal and parking would be plentiful. Besides, no one expects the Paramount to become a focus of public interest, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth putting to adaptive reuse as an office building or something similar.


After all, Greater Pittsburgh OB/GYN has an office at 1811 Blvd. of the Allies and Harvey M. Rubin is a pediatrician at 1709 Blvd. of the Allies, and Campbell Phillbin Medical Associates is less than a block behind the Paramount on Locust St., which proves that the stretch of road is indeed viable for medical office spaces.


However, if UPMC has their way, this huge swath of land will be forever removed from the tax rolls.

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