Major Retail-Apartment Complex Planned For Heart Of Oakland

PITTSBURGH, PA — Another new apartment-retail complex appears headed for Oakland on the University of Pittsburgh campus.

CA Ventures, a development firm specializing in off-campus student housing, will go before the Pittsburgh Planning Commission Tuesday to detail plans to develop an apartment building with a retail component. It would be located on a 1.2-acre property at Forbes Avenue at McKee Place on the site of a former Marathon gas station.

According to the developers, the project will be marketed to young professionals, medical workers, students and others looking for modern apartments in central Oakland.

The building will be designed and constructed with an integral parking garage for tenants and visitors. It will have approximately 300 residential units on the site with a mix of studios, one- two- and three-bedroom units.

There would be 7,500 square feet of retail space along Forbes Avenue, including the building's leasing office. There also would be about 230 parking spaces and 240 bikes spaces in the building's center, which would have apartments on three sides and be covered on top.

The development also would include a twenty-foot wide publicly accessible pedestrian connection between McKee Place and Semple Street.