The decision to locate its headquarters in the new Uptown development put USSteel on the front pages again Monday. What stayed below the surface of what was an upbeat announcement was that its 18-year lease at the 268,000 sq. ft. building represents a relatively downbeat outlook for the steel maker, which currently leases 420,000 sq. ft. at 600 Grant Street. It’s probably safe to assume there are plans for growth to occur but the length of the smaller lease implies a smaller commitment to Pittsburgh.

Other than that minor negative note, the win is big for the Pens and Uptown. The redevelopment of the former arena site gets a significant anchor and the heart of the site gains a catalyst that might spark development of the adjacent mixed-use block while the residential portion gets underway in 2015. That’s a lot of activity in a short period of time, especially after the length of the planning cycle.

Clayco expects to start in third quarter 2015. Its in-house architectural office, Forum Studio, will handle the design of the building. Discussion of the cost of the project has been nonexistent for some reason but the building should run $50 million or more. Given that it’s essentially a single-tenant building, the construction with fit-out could run a bit higher than $200/sq. ft.

In other news:

While there has been no formal announcement made, the design/build team for another anticipated project has been selected. The team of Trumbull Corp./Polivka has been chosen to do the $50 million inter-modal transit facility near McKees Rocks.

Today’s economic news was a surprising GDP report from the Dept. of Commerce. The government’s final estimate of GDP growth for the third quarter was revised upward to 3.9%. After a 4.6% gain in the second quarter, the U. S. economy is much stronger than even optimists predicted. The best news from the report for construction was the big jump in business investment of 7.1%.