Macy's closing downtown Pittsburgh store

[retailisking]

The former Kaufmann's flagship store will be turned into a hotel and apartments (and some smaller-scale retail)
http://www.post-gazette.com/business/pittsburgh-company-news/2015/07/13/Downtown-Macy-s-store-to-close/stories/201507130124

[ynkeesfn82]

The former Kaufmann's flagship store will be turned into a hotel and apartments
http://www.post-gazette.com/business/pittsburgh-company-news/2015/07/13/Downtown-Macy-s-store-to-close/stories/201507130124

Sad that it's closing, but at least it's not going to sit empty and rotting.

[Hudsons81]

The former Kaufmann's flagship store will be turned into a hotel and apartments
http://www.post-gazette.com/business/pittsburgh-company-news/2015/07/13/Downtown-Macy-s-store-to-close/stories/201507130124

Sad that it's closing, but at least it's not going to sit empty and rotting.

That right there reminds me of the Hudson's flagship when it closed. They had plans to reuse it, but it instead sat abandoned until it finally came down in 1998.

[FitchMike26]

I am devastated. I loved this place. I (thankfully) photographed it in 2011 before they started downsizing the floors.

[TheFugitive]

Very sad.  A historic place.  Fond memories of the Downtown Kaufmann's are intrinsic to a lot of Pittsburghers.

The iconic clock was famous as a meeting place.  You'd tell your blind date to "meet me under Kaufmann's Clock".  As was the Tic-Toc lunch counter, the cookie bakery, the hair salon, and many other things.

I think this is being driven by a boom in demand for hotel and apartment space downtown.  Macy's likely thought that selling the building was a better business deal than continuing to operate.  Fifteen years ago Gateway Towers was virtually the only residential building downtown.  Now loft space is springing up like wildfire.  Point Park University is growing like a weed, and a lot more young people are now living downtown.  The Oliver Building, where my wife used to work, has also recently been sold to be converted into hotel space.

Downtown Pittsburgh is problematic as a shopping destination.  Parking is very scarce, and quite expensive.  Most of the office workers who are in town on any given day use public transit.  When I was a kid there were 3 major department stores downtown (Kaufmann's, Horne's and Gimbel's) along with a GC Murphy 5 and 10, various record stores, Honus Wagner Sporting Goods, etc. When I was a kid most people lived in the city, and in close-in suburbs like Dormont, where it was easy to catch a bus or a streetcar.  Now that the sprawl has spread out to surrounding counties that is just not practical. Modern shoppers want to be able to drive to the door of the merchant, and that is just not possible in Downtown Pittsburgh. Our former Mayor, Tom Murphy, tried to re-invent downtown as a shopping destination, shoveling lots of public money into new locations for Lord and Taylor and for Lazarus.  It failed miserably.

[Hudsons81]

But you must mention one other thing...the fact that downtown Pittsburgh is even lucky to be continuing to thrive as a major destination and the reason for that: it's hemmed in on all sides by mountains where the roads there are sometimes impassible in the winter, unless you know otherwise.

[BillyGr]

But you must mention one other thing...the fact that downtown Pittsburgh is even lucky to be continuing to thrive as a major destination and the reason for that: it's hemmed in on all sides by mountains where the roads there are sometimes impassible in the winter, unless you know otherwise.

This may also be a reason that downtown does as well as it does - unlike so many cities it physically can't "spread out" away from the downtown as easily due to be surrounded by those mountains.  While some suburban areas exist on the other side, it's just not quite as easy as being able to go down the street a mile in a flat area and build there.
The same reason NY (Manhattan at least) does the same and builds up rather than out with the water surrounding it.

The iconic clock was famous as a meeting place.  You'd tell your blind date to "meet me under Kaufmann's Clock".  As was the Tic-Toc lunch counter, the cookie bakery, the hair salon, and many other things.

Seems like a common thing amongst these older stores to be a meeting place and the use of the clock as such.

One thing that is perhaps a bit more surprising is that someone like Macy's wouldn't try to work out a deal to have most of the building converted to residential while keeping maybe one or two lower floors for a small store.  That way they could still have a presence (which would be closer in size to a mall location), particularly with a large number of potential new customers living just above.  Maybe even keep some sort of eating area as part of that (again, what would be more convenient than taking the elevator to dinner?).

[retailisking]

One thing that is perhaps a bit more surprising is that someone like Macy's wouldn't try to work out a deal to have most of the building converted to residential while keeping maybe one or two lower floors for a small store.  That way they could still have a presence (which would be closer in size to a mall location), particularly with a large number of potential new customers living just above.  Maybe even keep some sort of eating area as part of that (again, what would be more convenient than taking the elevator to dinner?).

Even a retail store the size of a typical Macy's would be problematic due to the lack of parking and other practical issues. The lower floors will be used for retail. Core is already on the record as saying they're interested in retaining the Tic Toc Restaurant and Arcade Bakery as part of the redevelopment.
At least the Kaufmann's site won't suffer the same fate as the J.L. Hudson Building in Detroit.

[TheFugitive]

On that note the former Gimbels building up the street does house a Burlington Coat Factory and a Rite Aid on the lower level (used to have a Barnes and Noble before they went under).  The old Horne's store up on Stanwix now houses offices for Highmark BC/BS.

It is true that Downtown Pittsburgh is geographically very constrained compared to most downtown areas.   Basically sits on a triangle of land hemmed in by rivers and 400 ft. cliffs.  Very compact, I was able to walk the entire thing on my lunch hour when I worked down there.  That is why parking is so expensive, there just is not a lot of available land to build lots.  There are still a lot of office workers in town during the day (though that is becoming a harder sell for recruiters as more of the population moves out to distant suburbs like South Fayette and Cranberry).  Was not bad for me because I lived in an area where I could easily hop a bus or the T to get into town.

The biggest change I see is the number of young people who live down there now.  Young professionals who work in town, along with students from Point Park U. and the Art Institute.  This is leading to more restaurants and entertainment venues remaining open in the evenings.  The trend in the past few years has been for young people who come here to attend the universities are now staying after graduation and taking jobs.   Some neighborhoods close to Downtown (Mount Washington in particular) have gotten palpably younger over the past 5-7 years.

After decades of slow decline following the fall of Big Steel, where there was an outward one-way flow of young people, and we were behind only some markets in Florida in our percentage of Seniors, we'll take it.

[jconsolmagno]

I am devastated. I loved this place. I (thankfully) photographed it in 2011 before they started downsizing the floors.

Is there anywhere where we can get a look at these?

[BillyGr]

On that note the former Gimbels building up the street does house a Burlington Coat Factory and a Rite Aid on the lower level (used to have a Barnes and Noble before they went under).  The old Horne's store up on Stanwix now houses offices for Highmark BC/BS.

Do you mean Borders?  Barnes & Noble is still around (at least some places).