Pittsburgh Post Gazette
City school board approves plan to boost Bakery Square
By Joe Smydo
September 27, 2007

The Pittsburgh school board last night approved a tax-increment financing plan for the Bakery Square development in Larimer and a tax abatement plan for new city home builders -- projects touted as ways to make a variety of city neighborhoods more vibrant places.

The board voted 6-2 to adopt the tax-increment financing plan, or TIF, which gives $10 million in assistance to Walnut Capital Inc.'s plans to redevelop the former Nabisco bakery site.

The money would be used to help build a parking garage and pay for road and traffic light improvements at the development, across from Mellon Park on Penn Avenue.

Under a TIF, a developer pays only a portion of the regular property taxes during the life of the special financing plan. The rest is diverted to retire bonds floated to finance infrastructure improvements or other project costs.

Walnut Capital has proposed a 990-space parking garage, 132,000 square feet of retail space, 153,000 square feet of office space, a 120-room hotel and 38 residential units. Total development costs have been estimated at more than $113 million.

Mark Brentley Sr. voted no on the entire business and finance committee report, including the Bakery Square project; Randall Taylor voted no on the Bakery Square project; and board President Bill Isler was absent.

Mr. Taylor said he wanted developers receiving tax assistance to contribute to the Pittsburgh Promise, the proposed scholarship program for high school seniors. Solicitor Ira Weiss said Mr. Taylor did not raise the proposal in enough time to negotiate such a deal with Walnut Capital.

The Bakery Square plan has been approved by Allegheny County Council. City Council also must vote on the plan.

The school board approved Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's residential tax-abatement program, which for a decade would waive the first $2,700 in city property taxes on newly built housing units in Downtown and nearly 30 other neighborhoods.

Mr. Brentley cast the only no vote on the measure. City Council already approved the program.

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