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From the Pittsburgh Business Times
:http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/blog/the-next-move/2014/04/former-
odeon-theater-plan-to-become-apartments.html
Apr 4, 2014, 2:37pm EDT Updated: Apr 4, 2014, 5:49pm EDT
Former Odeon theater plan to become
apartments, retail in East Liberty
Tim Schooley
Reporter- Pittsburgh Business Times
Email | Twitter | Google+ | Facebook
A four-screen movie theater is out and more retail and apartments are in on three key properties
including a closed PNC Bank branch at the corner of Highland and Penn Avenues in the heart of
East Liberty.
Walnut Capital Partners is in the process of buying the properties from East Liberty
Development Inc. with an early plan of redeveloping the site into a project that would bring
16,000 square feet of retail, four floors and 55 apartments to a location in the middle of the
Penn Avenue business district.
Gregg Perelman, managing partner of Walnut Capital Partners, confirmed his firm expected to
close on the properties from ELDI by the end of the year and hopes to present a new plan to
the city in the next few months.
“We’re really excited about it,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to expand on what we’re doing
here.”
The ELDI-owned properties are right next door to his firm’s Walnut on Highland apartment
redevelopment of the Highland building in East Liberty, which Perelman said has been 100
percent leased since the start of the year.
Walnut Capital is also uniquely positioned to buy the properties and pursue a retail-and-
apartment project on the Penn Avenue site since it will also be able to use some of its
established parking at the 183-space garage next door at Walnut on Highland.
“The parking is key,” said Perelman, adding he expects the new development will help transform
the block of Penn Avenue.
He said Walnut Capital hopes to begin building a new project on the site by the end of the year,
without offering a potential budget for the plan or divulging what his firm will pay for the
property.
The company is preparing to do it on a site of what was previously planned to be a new five-
screen movie theater and apartment project called the Odeon, a joint venture of East Liberty
Development Inc. and Blasier Urban.
Nate Cunningham, the director of real estate for ELDI, told me the other day that the Odeon
project didn’t come to fruition, without offering further detail, and adding the property was
expected to be sold in the next 30 days, without specifying the buyer.
David Glickman, a director in the Pittsburgh office of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, whose
family’s real estate company owns a property within a block of the Penn and Highland
properties, saw the logic of Walnut Capital taking on a new apartment development next door to
its successful Highland project. But also expressed some disappointment at the theater project
not happening in a thriving East End with limited options for moviegoers.
"That’s tough to do a movie theater. They’re expensive. They can sometimes be difficult to
finance,” Glickman said. “It’s unfortunate because a movie theater with a proper amount of
parking would probably do quite well.”
Beyond the success of the Highland project, Perelman said leasing is strong at Walnut Capital’s
first apartment project at Bakery Square 2.0, which he’s calling Bakery Living. He said to expect
a 171-unit apartment building at Bakery Square to open in June, one of two apartment
buildings planned for the site.
Ernie Hogan, a formerly with ELDI and now the executive director of the Pittsburgh Community
Reinvestment Group, sees it as the right move for his former organization to get out from its
investment in the properties. He also sees it as an important site.
"Something needed to happen at that corner," he said. "That's a key corner."
Tim Schooley covers retail, real estate, construction, hospitality, arts and
entertainment, and government. Contact him at [email protected] or 412-
208-3826.