Dozens of residents attended a community meeting at the Allegheny Center Alliance Church on Nov. 11 to hear from developers Hullett Properties about plans to convert a hotel into low-income housing. (Photo by Eric Jankiewicz/PublicSource)
The potential conversion of a Comfort Inn in East Allegheny to affordable housing has neighbors worried about concentration of lower-income households, and the developer urging people against “equating low-income housing and criminality.”
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On Nov. 11, dozens of people from North Side communities attended a meeting to hear about a developer’s plans to turn the Comfort Inn & Suites into housing for tenants with housing vouchers. Any plans would need to wait for completion of bankruptcy proceedings, but Brett Walsh, one of the owners of developer Hullett Properties, told community members the conversion of the 96-room hotel could begin in early 2025 and be completed within a few months. Hullett Properties’ conversion plan calls for studio units and “junior” one-bedrooms.
An auction today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Western Pennsylvania could determine the future ownership and use of the site. A selection of qualified bidders will be meeting this morning in the offices of Arrakis LLC’s lawyers in downtown Pittsburgh and a hearing before the court on Dec. 13 will confirm the sale to the successful bidder. Arrakis is the current owner of the Comfort Inn.
Walsh and Hullett Properties co-owner Breanna Tyson addressed community concerns about concentrated poverty in the area after many residents noted the neighborhood is home to the 136-unit Allegheny Commons and the 211-unit Pressley Street High Rise, both of which serve lower-income households.
“The reality is, given the economics of these projects, without public subsidy as part of our capital stack, the project simply wouldn’t be able to move forward,” Walsh said. He added that after this project the company would turn toward creating market-rate housing developments, “something like a townhouse development.”
Walsh noted that the area doesn’t have a Registered Community Organization, so the Nov. 11 community meeting was optional for his company.
The Comfort Inn opened in January 2021 at a cost of $18 million. The hotel was met with fanfare and hopes from nearby East Ohio Street business owners who have sought to turn empty storefronts along the corridor into a restaurant row.
But the demands of the company’s 100-plus creditors, including taxing bodies, led to a bankruptcy filing on Sept. 20.
Out of the mire of court filings, Hullett Properties emerged with an interest in buying the hotel and converting it into housing.
At the meeting, held at the Allegheny Center Alliance Church, some residents were disappointed that the Comfort Inn never realized its full potential as a catalyst for more business development.
“I think the economic feasibility of this property as a hotel is just not there,” said Walsh.
The proposed change to housing, though, raised a host of issues and tensions now common in many communities.
Street homelessness is endemic
One resident asked if the new housing would be able to accommodate what they saw as a growing population of people facing homelessness who are living “pretty much in front of the hotel.”
Other residents further in the interior of the North Side joined the meeting.
“This is a solution that we need to really let it work because the bottom line is homelessness is real,” said Yvonne Rainey, a community activist from California-Kirkbride. “Children are homeless. We have people that’s working that’s homeless. So give it a chance.”
Part of the development plan calls for the hiring of a private company to administer wraparound services for the building’s future residents, and Walsh said Hullett is in talks with Trek Development, which may take over as property manager.
Walsh noted that if the development participates in Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato’s initiative to bring 500 housing units online in 500 days, the administration could provide financing to hire a company focused on tenant services. “If this project is part of that initiative, which it may or may not, the county will finance the wraparound services. But we don’t know that right now,” Walsh said, noting that even if the county doesn’t get involved, Hullett Properties will have to hire a management company as required under the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh voucher program.
Tyson said “our biggest goal is to house people and have people that are on the streets get off of the streets. It’s important in Pittsburgh, too, and any city, for that matter, to clean it up, but to not let it spiral to a point where it becomes a larger and larger issue.”
Some associate affordability and crime
Several residents during the meeting expressed concerns about security. One resident argued that an increase in security at the Allegheny Commons “helped curtail some of the crime that we’ve been seeing over there.”
Walsh said there would be security in place. “I think there’s a concern that maybe these units will be misused and they’ll be used to house, you know, a lot more people than what we’re saying they would be used for. That would be a breach of a lease. … Anyone who breaches the lease is subject to eviction.”
A resident who identified herself as Jennifer shared worries. “I’m concerned about issues that are associated with other similar properties that are already in the neighborhood. They bring, or have been associated with, things like criminal behavior, strain on public safety, policing.”
Jennifer said that police from Zone One, which patrols the North Side, have told her and other residents that the force is understaffed.
“I want to know, have you discussed this project with them and how those issues that are already ongoing at other similar properties won’t extend to this one?”
Walsh responded, to much applause from the meeting attendees, that “we have to be careful, though, in equating low-income housing and criminality. And it’s disappointing that that kind of line existed in these meetings. …
“What we do know is that if you create clean, modern, affordable housing for people, you have less criminal activity. I mean, so our view is that we’re bringing something that’s going to contribute to the health of the neighborhood in different respects.”
Affordable housing isn’t well understood
Some members of the public at the meeting wondered whether the housing would be like a homeless shelter.
A member of Teutonia Männerchor, one of Pittsburgh’s oldest and largest private clubs, asked the developers if there would be a curfew and times when the building’s doors would be locked.
Walsh said to view it “ultimately like an apartment building. … So it’s not a shelter in the sense where things get locked up. They would be free to move in and out of the building as one would be in an apartment building. It’s really an apartment building with that specific kind of mandate.”
Questions of best use raised
Another resident, Cathy Whitney, suggested that affordable housing may not be “the best use of that building.” The question echoed debate about whether affordable housing or an urban garden is the best use for a site in nearby Manchester.
“Maybe this site isn’t the place to do that. Maybe it’s not the best use of that building,” Whitney said, and wondered why the developers weren’t more “creative” in coming up with a use for this site.
Historically, she said, “there have been problems in this neighborhood from this type of housing. And to say that you’re disappointed that you would hear this from people is a little harsh because this is the way that it has been in this neighborhood for quite some time.”
Some in the crowd applauded.
Walter Whitney, a resident of East Deutschtown, said he was in favor of what Hullett Properties aimed to do but he said he thinks “it’s just too high a concentration.
“And we’ve always tried to mix the incomes, mix the workforce housing with professional housing, trying to get more integration between economic levels and the culture in order to strengthen the fabric of the community.”
Whitney concluded, to a round of applause, “I know that it could be converted to condominiums or into apartments. You don’t have to have just 500-square-foot apartments. You can combine three of the units, four of the units.”
Inclusionary zoning isn’t yet the law of the city
Hullett has its roots in Vancouver, and norms north of the border influenced the firm’s approach.
“We’re also from Canada where it’s more of an inclusionary zoning approach,” Tyson said, referencing land use rules which require that a certain percentage of newly built housing is affordable to households of modest means.
Mayor Ed Gainey has proposed that inclusionary zoning in Pittsburgh be expanded from a few neighborhoods to citywide. The City Planning Commission is set to be briefed on that proposal on Tuesday, and could vote on it Dec. 10.
“I think that it looks a little different in Canada where we’re from,” said Tyson, “but we’re used to doing all types of housing developments and doing them the best we can to make sure that they’re successful and they’re integrated in the community and not stigmatized.”
Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.