Another sector of the market making lenders nervous is hospitality. Here again, the news isn’t taking hold in Pittsburgh. Alphabet City owner Tony Dolan has taken a plan to the city to add five stories to a building on Reedsdale Street to create a 130-room hotel. Just a few blocks away, Matthew Shollar is proposing to convert the former Burns White building on Isabella Street into a hotel. Both of those sites are just a few blocks from where Oktober Development is planning to convert the former ARC Building into hotel use.

Across the Allegheny River, new boutique hotels at the former Kaufmann’s flagship store – also planned by Shollar – and at the Granite Building are stuck on financing. It will be interesting to see if either, or any of those proposed for the North Side, get enough lender or investor interest to come to fruition.

The pace of suburban hospitality projects has slowed but in Cranberry, the construction still goes on. With the Marriott Town Place topping off in Cranberry Springs, Summit Development and Nittany Cranberry Inn LP have proposed a 101-room Best Western at the site. Bear Construction will build the project. Creative Real Estate is hammering out final details with Franjo Construction for the proposed 116-room Homewood Suites to be built at the Village of Cranberry Woods near Franklin Road. The 124-room Wood Spring Suites hotel is well under construction in the township as well.

In other project news, Volpatt Construction was awarded a $2 million contract to renovate St. Peter Parish on the North Side. The Exel Logistics/Wesex Construction team is about to start construction on a 260,000 square foot warehouse for Phillips Respironics in East Huntingdon Twp. near New Stanton. Berlin Packaging is reported to be near an agreement to lease all of the 250,000 square foot spec warehouse that Al Neyer is developing at Clinton Commerce Park in Findlay Twp.