Historic office building slated to get makeover

Monday, November 21, 2005

In her long career, journalist, author and fashion designer Holly Brubach has lived in Paris, Milan and Manhattan.

	Brigitte Lacombe Holly Brubach

Born and raised in Shaler, Ms. Brubach, former style editor for The New York Times, is buying the nine-story Granite Building, Downtown at Sixth Avenue and Wood Street, next to the Duquesne Club.

She is planning to convert the structure, built in 1889-90 as the German National Bank to serve immigrants, into luxury condominiums with retail space on the ground floor. Ms. Brubach will retain two floors for her own personal residence and offer the rest for sale, with the potential for as many as five condominiums. There also will be a top floor apartment for short-term rentals.

What led a prestigious fashion writer and critic who has sampled some of the world's finest cities back to the 'Burgh?

"I guess you could say personal reasons. I lived in a number of places. It looks to me like such a great place to live in terms of quality of life and the scale of the city, what it has to offer in terms of culture, easy access to the outdoors. It's got good restaurants now," she said.

Pittsburgh may not be as large, as chic or as well-known as some of the other cities in which Ms. Brubach has lived, but she said it has a lot going for it.

"I think people in Pittsburgh sort of don't appreciate what they got. Maybe you have to live somewhere else and put up with a lot more hassles in life to see what a good place it is," she said.

Ms. Brubach said she also was enticed back to town by the residential developments in the works Downtown and the possible revitalization of the Fifth-Forbes retail corridor.

PNC Financial Services Group is planning an office, residential and retail complex on Fifth Avenue. Washington, D.C.-based developer Madison Marquette is considering a retail and residential complex on lower Fifth that would include the old G.C. Murphy's building. And Millcraft Industries Inc., a Washington County developer, is considering building condos on the upper floors of the vacant Lazarus-Macy's department store a block from the Granite Building.

Two other condo projects, the 82-unit 151 First Side overlooking the Monongahela River and the 61-unit Carlyle at the former Union National Bank at Fourth Avenue and Wood, are in the pre-sale phase. For many years, Ms. Brubach's father worked in the Union National building.

Ms. Brubach expects to close on the Granite Building by mid-December. She said acquisition and renovation costs will total about $3.5 million. She hopes to gut the interior and have unfinished space available for condominium buyers in the summer. She expects to have her own condo completed by this time next year.

Before settling on the Granite Building, Ms. Brubach considered some of the other condominium projects Downtown but decided she wanted something a bit more private, with fewer units.

"I just didn't see anything I fell in love with," she said.

That is until she set her eyes on the Granite Building. She's enamored with the 12-foot ceilings, the many windows, the big arches at street level, the bannisters inside, and the ornate bay-like windows on Wood Street and Sixth Avenue.

"When I saw it, it immediately struck me as a great candidate for residential use," she said. "I just like the space and light. Call me crazy. It just seemed ideal as a building and I like the location. I think it's one of the prettiest blocks Downtown."

The tall, slender Granite Building towers above those beside it on Wood Street. With the arches and stone, the building looks like a skinny cousin to the Allegheny County Courthouse, the Henry Hobson Richardson masterpiece -- as well it should, given that architects Charles Bickel and J.P. Brennan designed the Granite Building in the Richardsonian Romanesque style.

After getting its start as the German National Bank, the building has served primarily as office space for much of the last century. It also has been known as the Atlantic Financial Building. The upper floors currently are vacant, but a Sally Beauty Supply store occupies the ground level.

The building also carries with it a facade easement that protects the exterior from any unapproved alteration in accordance with National Park Service historic preservation standards. It is one of the most stringent levels of protection available for a building.

During her reconnaissance missions to Pittsburgh to scout locations, Ms. Brubach brought a number of friends from New York with her, and "every single one of them was so impressed with the place," she said.

A couple of them are even thinking about following in her footsteps from the Big Apple to the Golden Triangle.

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