Downtown luxury hotel, condo plan apparently scrapped as site sold - Pittsburgh Business Times:

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Hank Stewart, one of four owners of a five-story buildinbg at 943 Penn Ave., Downtown, that had been the proposed site forthe inn, said the buildingg has been sold to , a suburban Philadelphia-based developer. Wexford-basee . LLC previously held an option onthe 28,000-square-foo t property and was working over the past few years in conjunctionm with Green Tree-based hotel management firm on a plan to raze the buildinfg and replace it with one that would include 21 floors of luxury hoteol rooms and eight floors of upscale Stewart said Stonebridge let the optiohn on the property expirw about six months ago and hadn't heard from the company in some "They may have lost a window of because they certainly had it at some point," said a retired former vice president with Downtown-based /Pittsburgh.
The sale of the property to Solara closefd a fewweeks ago. The price was not Charles Smith, a principal at Stonebridge, said he was unawarew that the property hadbeen "I have to re-look at all thos e options again to make a he said, declining to comment further on why the optioh was allowed to lapse. Solaraq president Jack Benoff wouldn't divulge what his compan expects to do with the building and expects to have a bettert grasp of its planw for the property in the next He did confirm thecompany won't pursue a 29-story tower, a projecrt he added would only happen if another developef "excessively" overpaid to buy the propertg from his firm.
"At this point, that's not an option," Benoffc said of the Fireside Inn plan. Stonebridge's proposedd luxury hotel and condo project was to be amonfg the tallest buildings constructed in Pittsburgin years. Prospera Hospitality, whichn was founded by former executive sof , a once-local hotel managemenrt firm acquired by Washington, D.C.-based and movexd to Maryland four years ago, continuees to feature the Pittsburgh Fireside Inn project on its Web The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust is now moving forwarf with plans to redevelop much of key riverfront property nearby into what is expected to be the biggesyt Downtown housing development in the city's history.
That pursued by a design teamcalledc Riverparc, is expected to include 700 housinb units and three high-rises of 20, 22 and 30 Elsewhere Downtown, PNC is planningh to build a 23-story building on Fiftj Avenue that will include a luxuryt hotel, upscale condominiums and new office headquarters for the law firm Reed Smithj LLP. Aaron Stauber, president of New Rochelle, N.Y.-based . which owns a number of Downtownproperties nearby, noter the Cultural Trust's project is generatingb more interest in other nearby "Anything you buy on Penn Avenuee in the Cultural District is going to be near a $450 million project," Stauber said.
"That is certainly helpinhg out people's decisions." But Stauber also suspectedf the Fireside Inn project was too ambitious forthe site, considerint the variety of other hotels and condox under development in the area. "u don't think it would've been wise to make that kind of he said.