Steelers' Developer Buying North Shore Land For Amphitheater, Hotel

Some Say Pittsburgh Stadium Authority's Asking Price Is Too Low

POSTED: 6:09 pm EDT August 6, 2008

UPDATED: 12:43 pm EDT August 7, 2008

PITTSBURGH -- Pittsburgh's Stadium Authority approved a deal Wednesday that would sell two parcels of land between the North Shore stadiums to the developer working with the Steelers.

Plans are to build a hotel on one piece of land near the Fort Duquesne Bridge on the PNC Park side, and an indoor/outdoor amphitheater on the other site across from Heinz Field on Art Rooney Avenue.

The hotel between the stadiums will have approximately 178 rooms and is estimated to be a $27.5 million project. The amphitheater will seat 2,800 people indoors and 5,000 people outdoors.

The price for each parcel is $1.3 million, which some North Side residents protested, because they say the two parcels are worth $10 million a piece and because the developer has not agreed to a community benefits agreement.

The developer is Frank Kass, of Columbus, Ohio-based Continental Real Estate Cos., the same company that developed the Homestead Waterfront.

At the authority's Wednesday meeting at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, members of the Northside United community group held signs that said "No Secret Deals" and sometimes interrupted Kass while he was laying out the plans for the project.

Kass said he doesn't understand why making deals in Pittsburgh is so difficult. The faster the project gets started, the faster it can generate hundreds of jobs and a million and a half dollars in tax revenue each year, he said.

"I only develop in Columbus and Pittsburgh, but I can tell you, my boys would have me probated if they saw the kind of thing you have to go through to get a job done here," Kass said.

Both projects could be finished in 2010, barring any legal challenges.

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