Target Signs Lease Downtown
Target Signs Lease in Smithfield Corridor
After over three years of negotiations, Target is opening a store in the Kaufmann's Building in the heart of Downtown Pittsburgh.
Michael Samschick, president and CEO of Core Realty, the building’s owner, confirmed that Target has committed to occupying about 22,000 square feet of space on the first floor.
“It is exciting news that Target is official, signed and sealed,” he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“We’re very lucky. There were other cities slated as well. We were so fortunate to have them come to the plate.”
The store is expected to open early next year, Mr. Samschick said.
Target confirmed the deal in a statement.
“We’re excited to bring an easy, convenient shopping experience to additional guests in the community with this new Target store,” a spokesperson stated. “As we get closer to opening the store, we’ll have more specific details to share — including how the shopping experience will be tailored to serve local guests and the grand opening date.”
“In the next six months, the building will be all but done,” he said.
“We are going to create something that’s never been seen in the Pittsburgh market,” Mr. Samschick told The Downtowner.
The type of store Target opens in urban areas typically range from 12,000 to 80,000 square feet. The 22,000 square feet planned for downtown is in that range.
Inventory at each of the smaller-format stores could include apparel, food, home goods, beauty products and other items.
John Jackson, the Cushman & Wakefield/Grant Street Associates senior vice president who spent more than three years recruiting Target, said the retailer’s impact will extend far beyond the building itself.
“Target is not only the catalyst to transform the building but the Smithfield corridor itself,” he told the Post-Gazette. “It’s going to reinvigorate life back to the Smithfield corridor. It’s a little tired looking right now.”
“Pittsburgh has a great story to tell and retailers and companies alike just need to be educated on all that Pittsburgh has to offer. Target certainly did its research and now you see the end result,” he said.
Mr. Jackson said he is “very close” with another user for the second floor of the building. Target, he added, “will certainly help to fill the building with quality tenants. Everybody wants to be near Target. They’re a wonderful company and a wonderful operator.”
He credited the mayor’s office, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, and the Downtown Community Development Corp. with helping to recruit Target.
Market Street Grocery Expands Their Reach
By: Sean Armstrong
When talking about terms that define periods of time, the word “essential worker” must be one that applies to this moment. While those in this specific classification vary in nature on an individual level, they also vary at the professional level. Post Office personnel, hospital workers and grocery store employees will be some of the people that students read about when referencing this act in American history. In Pittsburgh, one place contributing to the first draft of history is Market Street Grocery.
Market Street Grocery provides grocery services, restaurant services and wine. Like many businesses right now, the place has taken a hit, to what owner, Mimi Falbo, estimates is about 70% of her business. Still, while this makes things trickier and it is tougher to stay above water, Falbo sees this as an opportunity to innovate.
Now, rather than the diversified business assets Market Street Grocery once championed, they are focusing on grocery sales more than ever. Primarily, they are expanding what their grocery section offers. While Falbo is working with the Downtown CDC to get more seating outside, so that their main source of revenue, their restaurant sales, are more viable, deliveries are also taking center stage.
Market Street Grocery has even started a specials program, where barbecue meals can be delivered or picked up on Fridays and Saturdays, Italian meals can also be delivered or picked up on Sundays, and for holiday occasions, grilled food and burger boxes can be delivered or picked up.
While these specials combine, the quality food the Market Street Grocery was known for by many patrons who worked downtown pre-pandemic, with the convenience of delivery, the most impressive part of this new service is the delivery zone. At first, Falbo explains that they just delivered downtown, but quickly expanded into all of Pittsburgh. Now, the suburbs are in their range, and Falbo even mentions that they’ll go almost anywhere.
The delivery service is not just about made to order food, but grocery items and wine too. Really, anything the Market Street Grocery has offered before or advertises online is up for grabs. They even still offer catering, but since events are suspended, they understand the catering opportunities will not be as large as what they are accustomed to.
Lastly, the grocery store is delivering specialty baskets that can combine their wine sales with their food sales. They see this as a way to help people celebrate special moments, even though the lack of gatherings can dampen these wonderful moments. They plan to make a new specialty basket featuring products all made in Pittsburgh so that you can celebrate and support the community.
All of this information and more can be found on their website at: www.marketstreetgrocery.com. This is also where you can place online orders for food, groceries and anything else. Falbo also encourages people to call them at 724-249-7657 if they have special requests or questions.
Fairmont Hotel Reopens with New Safety Measures
Fairmont Pittsburgh in Downtown announced it will reopen to guests and visitors on July 24. This will include the fl.2 Modern American Restaurant and the Health Club & Spa. Andy’s bar in the lobby will open at a later date. Due to COVID-19, the hotel has been closed for four months.
New measures will be taken to prevent the spread of the virus, including physical distancing, mandatory screening for all guests and employees, a 48-hour “sitting period” for occupied rooms after a guest checks out, and an increased frequency of cleaning and disinfecting. There will also be a focus on high-touch points and continued use of EPA registered disinfectant chemicals.
Masks will be provided to guests and workers are required to wear them at all times. Guests must wear masks in the hotel’s public spaces.
“The hotel’s top priority remains the safety, care, and wellbeing of our Fairmont Pittsburgh family,” said Interim General Manager Christian Klaus, Fairmont Pittsburgh.
“Today, this means keeping our guests and employees safe by preventing the spread of COVID-19 – partnering with top experts to implement new standards of safety and enhanced operational protocols and procedures which are among the most stringent in the hospitality industry.”
?Fairmont spokesperson Andrea Stehle explains temperature checks will take place at the main entrance of the hotel. Employees who have a fever will be asked to go home, and guests who register a fever will have the option to go home or stay at the hotel and self-isolate with any traveling companions.
Q&A With Henry Rothschild, Founder of Rothschild Diamonds
By: Aileen Friel
Q: Can you tell me a little bit about your business, how long have you been in Pittsburgh, and what makes you special?
Rothschild: Broff’s Diamond & Loan has been a part of Downtown Pittsburgh since 1931, two years before the Steelers were founded. Originally we were in a small storefront on Smithfield, but we moved to our new location at Liberty Avenue in 2019. We’re an interesting blend of jewelry store and loan office. We buy and sell jewelry, but we're also licensed to give loans using diamonds and jewelry as collateral.
Q: Where do you think your industry is headed post-COVID?
Rothschild: I think COVID showed us a glimpse of a potential post-retail world, which has really shaken up the industry. It isn’t an inevitability, but it is certainly something to pay attention to. We’ve seen how people are able to continue living without in-person sales experiences, commuting to work, face-to-face meetings, etc, but we’ve also seen how badly people miss those things. I miss walking through a thriving downtown, don’t you?
I miss the stores and the people. So COVID has made us take a hard look at virtual shopping, online loan payments, and shipping, but it also makes us examine the human experiences and service that people are really missing. If anything, enduring COVID just makes us want to get back to business!
Q: How has Pittsburgh specifically affected your business?
Rothschild: It’s been amazing to watch Pittsburgh change over the years. You just see these tidal shifts, whether it’s a business district opening, an old industrial building being repurposed, or the growth of a community. This city really seems to be evolving at an incredible rate, and throughout all that change there are institutions that seem to survive no matter what, and I find that really inspiring. They’re like rocks that the current can’t move. Like the Benedum Center, which was once the Stanley Theater. That building has stood for almost a hundred years with very little change, but think of how downtown has changed in that same amount of time. And Broff’s opened just three years later. I love seeing that blend of strong, beloved institutions combined with the rapid evolution of a growing city. I think that’s pretty specific to Pittsburgh and it gives a pride and hope that I don’t think we’d find anywhere else.
Q: Do you feel like running a business in this city works any differently compared to other major cities you work out of?
Rothschild: No matter where you go in Pittsburgh it seems to have a neighborhood quality that I think is very unique. You know your neighboring businesses and the people working there and you feel very much like you’re part of a greater community. I don’t get that feeling in a lot of other cities. We have an office in the Diamond District of Los Angeles and I don’t feel like the community there is as strong or supportive. It’s business first, you know? In Pittsburgh I feel like community matters more.
Q: How has your business affected the Pittsburgh community?
Rothschild: I believe that you can measure your effect on a community by how they respond to you in a time of crisis, and COVID really illustrated that. We closed our store for a couple weeks in order to build a safety zone, and our customers were understanding, patient, and supportive, even though it meant an inconvenience for them. We took our time to reopen so we could do it right and we got a lot of love for that. For wanting to do the right thing and keep everyone safe. I find that being part of a community means you have support when you need it and you can offer support to others when they need it. And we really felt that during COVID. We’re here for our community and our community is here for us. It’s a great feeling.
Gaining Perspective on the Job Market from Scott Sennott, President of Pancoast Staffing
By: Sean Armstrong
It is hard to tell what the health of the economy is at the moment. Depending on what you look at and who you ask you can get different answers to this inquiry. However, everyone agrees it is not as healthy as it was at the start of this year. Still, by talking to Scott Sennott, President of Pancoast Staffing, we can get an on the ground perspective.
Sennott, as part of a staffing firm, has a unique perspective on the job market because he will not have the insight many typically cite on long term employment. While some of the temporary employees do become full time, even during this period, Sennott deals with companies that need work done at the moment, not down the line.
Sennott begins by explaining that, “there is an ebb and flow,” to the job market right now. He elaborates that there seems to be a direct correlation between the governor’s mandates and the number of requests for work he receives from companies.
On the bright side, companies seem to have energy out there where they want to hire, but right now they can’t pull the trigger until they get the green light that work is safe. At the moment, some companies that were bringing their employees back to the office had to send them home after the rise in case numbers. That obviously affects employment opportunities.
Still, Sennott mentions that the industries that can work from home exclusively, which is certainly not every industry, some of them have planned to resume office work in 2021. He also talks about how there are various strategies he hears companies employing to try to get back to a semblance of normality.
One of the more common strategies is a rotation schedule, where say half the employees might come in one week, and then work from home the next, while the employees that were home the week prior come to work. Another idea is to focus on floor space and social distancing measures.
Despite everything going on, when speaking to Sennott about how busy his staffing firm is, he explains that the reason behind their busy schedule has changed from the start of the pandemic until now. At first, there was a ton of checking in with the companies to find out their COVID-19 policies. This check-in was crucial to allow Pancoast Staffing to keep the lines of communication open and assure the people coming to them, asking for work, that they would be safe.
Now, months after the initial shock has somewhat worn off, the work has gone back to what Pancoast is more familiar with in the pre-pandemic world. They are setting people up with jobs and ensuring all safety protocols are followed. Sennott even mentions that what would be highly unusual for temporary employees in the normal world, working from home, is now something that multiple employers are willing to do.
Sennott leaves the conversation off by stating that from the start of the pandemic until now, he believes we have taken, “three steps forward and one step back.” Three steps forward from where we were when everything shut down, at the start, and one step back from the new closings that have happened as a result of spiking case numbers.
Sennott also mentions that Pancoast Staffing is once again, providing services beyond simply setting up work, they are trying to look after those that come to them and their wellbeing. One of the ways they have done this in recent months is by sending COVID packages that include items like masks, hand sanitizer, and a checklist with things like washing hands as well as staying home when sick on it, to their employees.
For anyone looking for employment or who needs work done, you can find out more about Pancoast Staffing at: www.pancoast.com
Takeout and Delivery Restaurant Directory
We have compiled a list of restaurants in the city that are still in operation and serving takeout or delivery options.
Find it here: https://www.downtowncdc.org/restaurant-directory
Virtual Events
Many events throughout the region have been planned for or moved to an online platform due to COVID-19. We have compiled these Pittsburgh based virtual events so that you can find them here: https://www.downtowncdc.org/events
More Than Just Downtown: Weekly Roundup
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