Pittsburgh Business Times
Official Pittsburgh presence missing at annual developer conference
Some argue city's money could be better spent elsewhere
Tim Schooley
June 10, 2005

On a blank white square tabletop, the city of Baltimore twists and turns, an aerial photograph zooming in and around to show rooftops, nearby waterfront and entire city neighborhoods.

The table is a high-tech trade booth device prepared for the Baltimore Downtown Partnership, which featured it as part of its demonstration at the Spring Convention for the International Council of Shopping Centers in Las Vegas last month.

"We're doing (the presentation) for the private developers," said Robert Aydukovic, a representative of the Baltimore Downtown Partnership.

"This show and the one in New York in December are the two biggest retail real estate schmooze fests there are," he said.

But while Baltimore had a table, Pittsburgh didn't. The closest thing Pittsburgh seemed to have as an official marketing presence for a trade show that attracts nearly 40,000 was a brochure at the public sector showcase area for the state of Pennsylvania.

At a show where brokers and developers schedule their appointments in 15-minute increments, where a language of square footage, co-tenancy and lease contracts was spoken almost exclusively, Pennsylvania's brochure featured a picture of a wind farm.

While cause and effect in such marketing efforts isn't always easy to trace, Mr. Aydukovic believed Baltimore's seven-year presence at the trade show has paid off.

"It's really helped gain some interest from the development community and retailers," he said. "All of a sudden Baltimore isn't this little pimple on the East Coast that people are trying to step over," he said.

Cities and towns large and small were in attendance, including many metros of comparable size against which Pittsburgh competes. Along with Baltimore, there was a convention presence from Milwaukee, Buffalo, N.Y., Boston, Dallas, Rochester, N.Y., Richmond, Va., Omaha, Neb., and Lexington, Ky.. Officials from Dodge City, Kan., were marketing against type by imploring retailers and developers to get into Dodge.

Portland, Ore., had a full-scale trade booth and marketing materials that boasted of its dog parks, public transportation and 100,000 Downtown workers -- a figure well below Pittsburgh's.

But they also note how Pittsburgh and its surrounding region have struggled for years to market itself. This was a major opportunity to market the city to an industry of developers, retailers and investors, and Pittsburgh blew it, some say.

"It obviously shows our lack of sophistication as a region that we're not represented in a large developer convention such as the ICSC," said Tony Dolan, a principal who specializes in commercial development for Shadyside-based Walnut Capital Partners.

Patrick Kellner, a local retail specialist who helped to lease the Soffer Organization's SouthSide Works at ICSC in years past, believed Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and the surrounding region missed an opportunity.

"Soffer buys a booth for $400. Why doesn't Pittsburgh buy a booth for $400? Go sell the region," he said. "Everybody has a booth, but Pittsburgh is worried about the color of their logo."

Mr. Kellner was alluding to the city's regional branding initiative of a few years ago, in which hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent to develop some basic verbal themes and design concepts to market Pittsburgh to the outside world.

"Any focus that's positive on a city, that shows it's progressive and wants to do business tells developers, and signals to the retailers, that this is a place where I want to do business," he said. "Anything you can do that tells people that Pittsburgh is a great city with wonderful waterfront opportunities has got to be a good thing."

In the past, Pittsburgh has at least had a presence at the convention. A few years ago, Mayor Tom Murphy represented Pittsburgh in a panel discussion with mayors of other cities such as Dallas and Oakland.

Mulu Birru, former executive director of the city's Urban Redevelopment Authority, was a regular attendee of the convention before leaving his position about a year ago.

Other city officials have attended ICSC as well.

But some believe the convention is too expensive to attend and doesn't necessarily offer the best impact for the dollar.

That includes Midge McCauley, who formerly marketed Downtown's Fifth and Forbes district to retailers at the convention when she was with suburban Philadelphia-based Kravco Co.

"Unless you have an unlimited budget, there may be better ways to use your marketing dollars," she said. "When Pittsburgh has Fifth and Forbes ready, I would leave that up to the individual developers to market it."

She also added that ICSC is a convention that emphasizes mostly chain retail, when local independents are often a valuable component for urban retail.

Pittsburgh and its surrounding region are well represented by its private development community, including such companies as ECHO Real Estate Services, Armstrong Development, Kossman Development Co., Walnut Capital, Langholz Wilson Ellis Inc., Oxford Development Co. and the Soffer Organization.

Out-of-town developers such as Columbus-based Continental Real Estate Cos. and Baltimore-based the Cordish Co. were at the convention marketing their plans for the North Shore.

Mr. Aydukovic, of Baltimore, notes that Baltimore's attendance of the trade show was done with only little public expense. Baltimore's trade booth was paid for with contributions by Baltimore's development companies and the Baltimore Downtown Partnership.

Michael Edwards, the new executive director of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, agreed with Ms. McCauley that the convention was too costly.

"My feeling is that the show is a very sophisticated show for folks with property and folks with retail space. I would not think that we, as an agency, would be particularly effective at that show, which is hugely expensive."

Along with the cost of renting space for a booth, one must also be designed and manned. At the same time, Mr. Edwards noted that the area on the 1.2-million-square-foot trade show floor where the municipal booths are located often receive poor traffic in comparison to where the large developers are based.

But he also believed that the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership could play a role in marketing Pittsburgh at the convention. In his previous job as the executive director of the Downtown Partnership in Spokane, Wash., Mr. Edwards attended the ICSC show in 2001. While he believed Spokane benefited from the show, it was took place before 9/11, which greatly disrupted the U.S. economy.

"There's a role for the PDP to play at the ICSC show, but I think it's as partners with a developer," he said.

Mr. Dolan, whose firm now owns and operates retail property both in the city and in its surrounding suburbs, agreed that the Pittsburgh region's private developers could play a role working together to market the city and region.

"It's probably something we should consider as a group," he said. "Sometimes you just need somebody to organize it. Somebody needs to take the reins and get everybody organized."

But he also was wary that politicians have wrongly emphasized retail's role in greater economic development issues. He believed marketing to build and attract new companies and industries to the region was more important than attracting new retail.

"We're at the tail end of the process," he said of retail's place in economic development. "From my perspective, as a retail person, I would hope and wish that the politicians would focus the vast majority of their efforts in trying to bring new industry and new jobs into the region."

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