East Liberty bank building fails to gain historical designation, could be demolished

An effort to preserve a 51-year-old Modernist bank building in East Liberty failed to gain the support of Pittsburgh City Council members this week.

The building, at 6112 Penn Ave., is a landmark that should be preserved, Councilwoman Deb Gross said.

But Gross was the only council member who thought so.

Constructed in 1969 and 1970, the building housed a Mellon Bank branch and was most recently used by Citizens Bank. It is vacant and owned by an Arizona-based limited liability corporation.

It was nominated for historical designation by the group Preservation Pittsburgh, which noted its “innovative, small-scale commercial interpretation of functionalist modernism,” in the application it submitted for the designation.

Brittany Reilly chairs the group’s Modern Committee. They found the building was an “exceptional example” of Mellon Bank’s unique architecture stylings of the era, she said.

“We feel that landmarks have the power to tell stories in Pittsburgh,” Reilly said.

The city’s Historic Review Commission and Planning Commission both recommended the designation, which was opposed by its out-of-state owner. Attempts to contact the LLC listed on the nomination form as the building’s owner and Citizens Bank weren’t successful.

On Tuesday, city council members denied the recommendation of the city’s commissions, which effectively paves the way for the building to be demolished, Gross said.

“We have new generations who have a different perspective on what is ‘old’ and what isn’t,” Gross said during the meeting.

The building is used as a landmark in East Liberty, where it is catty-corner across Centre Avenue from the Target store.

A landmark doesn’t have to be something everyone considers beautiful to be considered as such, Gross said, noting she isn’t personally a fan of the Modernist architecture. But that doesn’t mean the building should be razed, she said.

She lamented the “cookie-cutter” buildings that many chains use despite their location and said the building was unique enough to be worth preserving.

Other council members disagreed, although they didn’t comment on Tuesday. Councilman Anthony Coghill abstained from the vote and Councilman Corey O’Connor didn’t participate in the meeting.

When council discussed the building at its July 21 committee meeting, Councilman Ricky Burgess said because the owner opposed the nomination and East Liberty’s community groups also opposed the nomination that it should be denied.

“I think this is a problematic nomination,” Burgess said.

He’s generally opposed to such designations when the owner and the people who live in a community oppose them, he said.

Council’s lack of support for the designation was disappointing to Reilly.

“We put a tremendous amount of effort into that research,” she said of compiling the material to achieve the designation.

Even with buildings dating to the 1970s, “it is not too soon to be really discussing these structures in how they reflect a period of design and a period in our region’s history,” Reilly said.