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Sounds like they're thinking of keeping them. The article said that they had some ideas for retail. I'm trying to picture in my mind if the buildings are in good shape. Hard to do because all I keep seeing are those giant billboards.
There is a Liberty Travel and a small convenience store, Liberty News in these addresses. The billboards are stacked on top. Although I would not necessarily consider this corner to be unsightly, it is time for an upgrade given what is going on around it. BTW, the adjacent park of Heinz Hall has pretty much been dismantled. Is anyone privy to plans for this property?
value is always dependent on the income stream it produces.
Oh sure. I guess I just wasn't aware how much money you could make renting billboard space.
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I'm curious if they're going to rehab them or "knock em all down"
I think there is some sort of master deal which includes PNC and the PHLF about which buildings Downtown should be preserved, but I don't know if it applies to these buildings. In any event, I recall reading an article a while back which suggested they might want to convert these into some sort of annex to the Fairmont.
URA executive director Rob Stephany said PNC wants to "renovate and reposition" the properties in an effort to make them more of a welcoming point. "They don't have proposed tenants or reuses yet, but I think the notion is they're in the heart of that investment zone and they want to try to clean up things around them," he said. . . .
Mr. Stephany said the "big ideas" that have been kicked around for the properties include the use of one as a welcoming center for visitors or maybe even as a police mini-station. PNC also is toying with the idea of making the three-story building at 604 Liberty into very exclusive housing space that could be used by entertainers performing in the cultural district or perhaps even as an extension of the Fairmont, Mr. Stephany said. . . .
Fred Solomon, a PNC spokesman, declined to discuss specific reuses for the buildings until plans are approved by the URA. He would only say PNC expects to acquire them for a "business purpose and to further enhance the neighborhood."
Sounds like once they get everything approved by the URA we might here more from PNC about their plans.
It is true that industrialization initially led to a boom-and-bust cycle pretty much everywhere. However, some countries then learned that various policies can help moderate the business cycle, and when applied properly and consistently these policies did work for extended periods of time, meaning that while there were still recessions, they were milder and briefer than the recessions of the past. The problem today is that some rather large and important countries (hint: we live in one) departed from these policies, and so we got a bust that was on a scale similar to the old recessions.
actually, boom bust cycles predate industrialization, prior that, not much is known since economics wasn't even a school of thought. It's not entirely clear whether thoe policies did work or if they simply put off the inevitable. in fact, it was the desire to eliminate or reduce recessions that likely motivated a lot of the distorting behavior.
anyway
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We wanted to get the best people in Pittsburgh, and I don't think we could have done better," Mr. Greenberg said. He is also proud that the restaurant will open on schedule, first with a soft opening, then to the general public by the end of August.
With renovations complete, just a few finishing touches remain, such as the installation of art from local artist Phiris Kathryn Sickels. "There's an area in the restaurant that's going to be called the gallery," said Mr. Greenberg. "That one wall is dedicated to local artists, and quarterly we're going to switch the artist."
Meanwhile, Mr. Severino is putting the finishing touches on his opening menu. "I'm really trying hard to do simple food, prepared and plated eloquently," he said. Diners can expect a lot of charcuterie, about half made in-house to start.
The menu makes ample use of the kitchen's rotisserie grill with dishes such as porchetta, pork loin and belly seasoned with garlic, rosemary and thyme, and roasted on the rotisserie for about five hours. The meat will be portioned to order, each plate getting a piece of loin and of pork belly, crisped up in the fryer. Charred radicchio and endive, and a warm salsa verde with lentils, will finish off the plate. At lunch, they'll cool down the meat, slice it thin and serve it on panini.
Elysian Fields boneless leg of lamb will also be cooked on the rotisserie, the cavity rubbed with preserved lemon, roasted garlic, tapenade and thyme.
It will be served with homemade merguez sausage, brown butter, mashed potatoes, braised kale, and toasted and crushed almonds and cocoa nibs.
With Ms. Ferguson on the team, plan on ordering dessert. Her opening menu will include late summer flavors, such as a peach crostata with lavender-scented whipped cream, a brown sugar caramel sauce and a toasted streusel topping.
actually, boom bust cycles predate industrialization, prior that, not much is known since economics wasn't even a school of thought.
There were certainly good and bad times economically, but it isn't clear that there was the same sort of business cycle as followed industrialization. Employment, credit, the effects of various shocks--it all works pretty differently in economies dominated by agriculture.
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It's not entirely clear whether thoe policies did work or if they simply put off the inevitable.
Moderating cycles for decades at a time seems like a reasonably good outcome relative to doing nothing, even if eventually (say, for political reasons) it stops working.
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in fact, it was the desire to eliminate or reduce recessions that likely motivated a lot of the distorting behavior.
I'm not sure what you mean by "distorting behavior". There are multiple competing theories about the exact causes of the business cycle, and I think the best theory would incorporate multiple possible causes. But in any event, these cycles started up well before there was any organized attempt to try to address them in any of the relevant countries, and it wasn't until after the Great Depression (which had been preceded by many cycles) that most industrialized countries adopted such policies.
So it is possible these policies have "distorted behavior"--indeed, in some sense that is the point, to influence the behavior that contributes to these cycles. But since many cycles predated such policies, I'm not sure how it is possible that these policies could be considered one of the primary causes of the original, "undistorted", behavior that led to these cycles in the first place.
There were certainly good and bad times economically, but it isn't clear that there was the same sort of business cycle as followed industrialization. Employment, credit, the effects of various shocks--it all works pretty differently in economies dominated by agriculture.
there were clearly booms and busts in trading countries prior to industrialization. agricultural economies in the "fuedal era" were more marked by grinding poverty where even the richest live fairly poorly.
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
Moderating cycles for decades at a time seems like a reasonably good outcome relative to doing nothing, even if eventually (say, for political reasons) it stops working.
it's not clear it only stopped working for political reasons, some cycles are longer than others. decades is nothing when you're talking human history and long term economic trends.
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
I'm not sure what you mean by "distorting behavior"
distorting behavior is what happens when you purposely distort price signals.
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
. But in any event, these cycles started up well before there was any organized attempt to try to address them in any of the relevant countries, and it wasn't until after the Great Depression (which had been preceded by many cycles) that most industrialized countries adopted such policies.
really? the federal reserve was established in 1913. the great Depression was the first managed downturn in the US, didn't work out so well.
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
So it is possible these policies have "distorted behavior"--indeed, in some sense that is the point, to influence the behavior that contributes to these cycles.
certainly that is the point, it's just that you fix one problem and create another, thereby not really fixing anything.
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Originally Posted by BrianTH
But since many cycles predated such policies, I'm not sure how it is possible that these policies could be considered one of the primary causes of the original, "undistorted", behavior that led to these cycles in the first place.
free markets have never really existed but that aside, you're logic is a bit backwards here. simply because something didn't happen before doesn't negate its ability from playing a role after its inception. since the Great Depression the US has consistently increased it's debt and spent it's capital. a narrow view could say we were successful in taming the cycle but a long term view might indicate we simply paved it over and never really fixed anything. I don't believe in voodoo economics that says you can actually fix the business cycle, I do believe in government policy that softens the blow of structural changes in the economy (which sometimes appear to happen overnight because people don't realize it's happening) and move on to the next cycle, but that's different from outright management of the business cycle itself, which is what a lot of bright minds have failed doing. we're pretty far OT here so this is my last post on it, I don't want to get this thread about downtown locked.
there were clearly booms and busts in trading countries prior to industrialization. agricultural economies in the "fuedal era" were more marked by grinding poverty where even the richest live fairly poorly.
True, but again the sorts of boom and busts seen in trade-based economies weren't necessarily the same as the business cycle. Meanwhile, there were cycles in agricultural economies, but they were largely driven by things like weather and disease.
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it's not clear it only stopped working for political reasons, some cycles are longer than others. decades is nothing when you're talking human history and long term economic trends.
That's possible, but in the United States at least, we know the policies in question were abandoned before they stopped working, in the service of a certain political agenda.
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distorting behavior is what happens when you purposely distort price signals.
OK, but I'm not sure there is anything such thing as an undistorted price signal given that definition. In any event, it is certainly the case the deliberately influencing things like the inflation rate are part of the policy package in question.
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really? the federal reserve was established in 1913. the great Depression was the first managed downturn in the US, didn't work out so well.
But the Great Depression was far from the first such cycle in U.S. history, and in fact the Fed was created as a response to the prior ones. Moreover, at the behest of then Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, the Fed adopted a laissez-faire attitude at the beginning of the Great Depression. So while it technically existed, it didn't attempt the relevant policies.
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certainly that is the point, it's just that you fix one problem and create another, thereby not really fixing anything.
Well, that is why you compare periods when the policies have been in place to the periods where they haven't. Understanding that the Great Depression is on the side of the policies not being in place, as in fact is the latest recession, and understanding that prior to the Great Depresssion there were a bunch of other recessions much more severe than the recessions we experienced while the policies were in place, the evidence so far is overwhelmingly in favor of the policies being more helpful than harmful.
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simply because something didn't happen before doesn't negate its ability from playing a role after its inception.
Some contributing role, maybe, but these policies are unlikely to be the primary cause of something that repeatedly happened in the past before they were enacted. And again, during the periods in which they have actually been tried, they don't seem to have made things worse--just the opposite.
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since the Great Depression the US has consistently increased it's debt and spent it's capital.
Actually, that is not true. Between the end of WWII and before the Reagan Administration, we had been decreasing our total debt (in percentage of GDP terms). We also briefly decreased our total debt during the latter part of the Clinton Administration.
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a narrow view could say we were successful in taming the cycle but a long term view might indicate we simply paved it over and never really fixed anything.
But you are talking about something like a 50 year period. If all we do is space out serious recessions to every 50 years or so, that would be a huge accomplishment relative to what was going on prior to that period.
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I don't believe in voodoo economics that says you can actually fix the business cycle
For the record, neither do I. What I do believe is the government can timely intervene to moderate, but not entirely eliminate, the business cycle. But again that alone is a big victory, because the unchecked business cycle wastes a lot of resources and ruins a lot of lives.
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we're pretty far OT here so this is my last post on it, I don't want to get this thread about downtown locked.
Fair enough, although I do think this is a very relevant issue for thinking about what sorts of goals we should have for Pittsburgh.
I'm guessing if that stat is real it's volume (number of sales down 34% vs prev year or such, possibly only for July month) not price. But I don't know. I haven't seen that stat. Housing stats are generated on a wide variety of time frames and numbers.
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