The new owner of the Henry W. Oliver Building, McKnight Realty Partners, is conducting a study on future improvements and use of the building, which could include a 250- to 275-unit suites hotel.
"Besides the possibility of a hotel on the upper floors of the building, we plan to make major capital improvements to the building that will include elevator work in the low-rise part of the building, perhaps some exterior work and improvement to the mechanical system," said Chuck Perlow, a partner at McKnight Realty. The study should take about six months to complete, he said.
Pittsburgh can use more hotel rooms Downtown, Perlow said.
McKnight Realty took ownership of the 102-year-old building at 535 Smithfield St., Downtown, on Oct. 17 through a deed in lieu of foreclosure, by paying about $10 million on an existing debt of $29.8 million.
The payment was made to LNR Partners of Miami Beach, Fla., which had been appointed the special servicer by the building's lenders. The mortgage note was owned by a group of banks that included Bank of America, according to LNR.
The building had been owned by Oliver Building LP, with Oliver-GP Inc. as general partner. George Cornwell of Austin is president of Oliver-GP.
The building is about 31 percent occupied. It suffered a major setback in 2009 when the law firm K&L Gates, a longtime occupant and one of the city's largest law firms, decided to relocate to the former One Oliver Building, now known as K&L Gates Center.
That emptied several hundred thousand square feet in the 25-story, 471,786-square-foot building.
The management firm LG Realty Advisors, headed by Larry Gumberg, has operated the building.
McKnight Realty, which includes as partners William and Jim Rudolph along with Perlow, owns the Grant Building, 57 Heinz Center (former Gimbels department store) and the Brooks Brothers building, all Downtown.
