First glimpses of Pittsburgh’s Bakery Living

06.2014Building, Design, Firm News, Places

By Street Talk Editor

Sixteen months after a chilly groundbreaking in February 2013, a new type of apartment building for Pittsburgh is nearing completion in the East End. As construction crews finalize their work on Bakery Living, at least 50% of the 175 apartments are already occupied and residents continue to arrive. Their new digs feature a unique set of amenities, including a shared lounge, game room, bar, swimming pool, fitness center, bike storage and even a dog washing room, all of which surround a courtyard that provides a green roof over top of underground parking.

Bakery Living is the first phase of the Bakery Square 2.0 Master Plan that Strada has been implementing with developer Walnut Capital since 2011. The Plan, also designed by Strada, builds on the initial success of Bakery Square. As luck would have it, a prime site directly across Penn Avenue from the renovated Nabisco building became available, setting the stage for a complete neighborhood with residences, green space, and additional commercial areas. The transformation of this 12.5-acre property of a former public school speaks to larger shifts in the urban landscape.

The 1970s-era school building, now a distant memory, represented a time when energy-efficiency meant tiny windows and a blank box of a building. Bakery Living, however, employs contemporary materials and systems that maximize light and fresh air while maintaining efficiency. Impervious paving that served as the school’s parking lot is being replaced by new green infrastructure that will help moderate stormwater flows. At ground level, residents will benefit from new pedestrian and transit connections to adjacent neighborhoods, with a nod to earlier decades of the 20th century when this parcel was part of Shadyside’s grid of residential streets.

Undated photo looking across the site towards the Nabisco Building, completed in 1918

Construction is also underway on the first commercial building on the site and a second residential building will begin to appear this fall. We look forward to seeing how new inhabitants of this neighborhood will make their mark in the city.

Enjoy a virtual tour of the new apartments at Bakery Living in this video from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, posted on June 12, 2014.

Strada project team: Michael Stern, Tom Price, Ed Shriver, Rob Dower, Melanie Sloan, Claudia Saladin, Mason Radkoff, Monika Gibson.