Monday Morning Miscellany

PG reports that Downtown office market remains a Hotbed of Activity, global depression or not. Doing better than ever actually. What really amazes me is that just a few years ago people were so often predicting the demise of Downtown Pittsburgh that I felt needed to put some perspective out there in "Is Downtown Dead, Hardly. At the time, most people I heard from on that thought I was just nuts or just playing booster to some agenda I knew nothing about. As it stands, about the only thing limiting faster growth Downtown is sheer geography. Can't fit much more in a half square mile which is all that constitutes Downtown Pittsburgh proper.

Same is true in Oakland for that matter. If you are under 80 you may not appreciate the magnitude of the news that Duranti's Restaurant is closing. What is going in their space (under the original home of the Pittsburgh Penguins)? I am told its all going to be converted into offices which reflects just how tight demand is for space is in Oakland and immmediate environs. I bet it's tighter than Downtown by some measures even with the impending move of Children's Hospital out of the neighborhood which could create some supply.

Both Oakland and Downtown would be stories unto themselves in normal economic times.. That little of these pressures appear to have let up going a year into a recession is that much more remarkable.
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Is the Casino Journal shut down or just on indefinite leave? Looks like Neil Bluhm has also been awarded a license for a new casino in suburban Chicago.

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Mentioned in passing this WSJ article last week: Grim Debt Prognosis At Health Nonprofits is this quote:

West Penn Allegheny Health Care System, survivor to the $1.3 billion bankruptcy by Pennsylvania-based Allegheny Health Care Education and Research Foundation in July 1998, finds its Moody's Ba3-rated junk bond debt trading at about 48 cents on the dollar.

48 cents on the dollar is not good.

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Not really news, but the AP is running a blurb about how 2008 data will show that Pittsburgh passenger total expected to hit record low out at the airport.

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Sometimes you just have to fill space. What is the point of doing a quarter by quarter breakdown of the game yesterday. Also up in Cleveland the hopes that Bill Cowher will come to save them continue to escalate. The jaw came out fighting when the Titans were stomping on a Terrible Towel. You have to wonder a bit.

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And finally, my news filter caught this headline which I thought was about Pittsburgh: Layoffs, Pay Cuts Cast Shadow Across City of Steel. But it's from St. Petersburg, and not that St. Petersburg either.