Bakery Square is an open-air shopping and office development in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Larimer, adjacent to the neighborhoods of Shadyside and East Liberty in the city's East End. Bakery Square is located on 5.1 acres along Penn Avenue.[1]
History
The main Bakery Square building was built as a Nabisco factory in 1918 and operated until 1998.[2] Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwest Pennsylvania bought the building in 1999 and leased it to the Atlantic Baking Company,[3][4] which was subsequently merged with Bake-Line Group and then went bankrupt in 2004.[5] In 2006, the City of Pittsburgh declared the building blighted, paving the way for a redevelopment plan by Walnut Capital in 2007.[6] The building opened after remodeling in May 2010.[7][8]
In June 2014, President Barack Obama visited TechShop, a workshop and prototyping studio, in Bakery Square.[9]
Office Tenants
Bakery Square has 216,080 square feet of office space. More than half the space is leased by Google. Other tenants include:[10]
UPMC Enterprises
University of Pittsburgh, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology
Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology Continuing Education (RSTCE)[12]
Masters of Science in Prosthetics and Orthotics Program
University of Pittsburgh, Swanson School of Engineering
Human Movement Research Laboratory (Department of Bioengineering)
Google
Google operates an office in Bakery Square.[13][14] A piece of the Nabisco factory's original equipment, a large dough mixer, was left standing in homage to the site's industrial roots.[15] As of January 2011, Google was leasing approximately 115,000 square feet (10,700 m2) of office space in the complex, though not all of it was yet developed and filled with employees.[16]
Walnut Capital successfully worked with Urban Redevelopment Authority of the City of Pittsburgh to purchase and subsequently demolish the former Reizenstein school. Construction began on a project named "Bakery Square 2.0," this new development will create a combination of new office space and residential development.
Bakery Living
With completion in early June 2014, the first of the two apartment buildings at the site opened to tenants. The project, designed by Strada Architecture LLC., is LEED Certified, with bio-retention on site, green roofs, porous paving, and bioswales. A second building was completed and opened for rent in June 2016.[18][19]
References
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bakery Square.