315 and 317 North St. Clair Street are not your typical East Liberty homes.
Sold this spring, these design-forward houses are the result of a collaboration between ELDI, TAI + Lee, Architects PC, and the Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS) at Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) School of Architecture—a program that offers students hands-on experience in design and construction.
The St. Clair homes project, which kicked off in 2019, was a unique chance for UDBS students to get real-world experience with housing construction in particular.
“In the past, the School of Architecture had limited opportunities to do projects that involved housing,” said Steve Lee, former head of CMU’s School of Architecture and co-founder and principal of TAI+LEE, Architects. “We did a community bread oven in Braddock and projects for Action Housing uptown but what we wanted to do was demonstrate a new approach to housing. We found a willing partner in ELDI.”
This “new approach” went beyond just design or materials—it was about creating a housing strategy that could help prevent displacement. The idea was that the profits from the sale of the St. Clair units would be reinvested into the East Liberty community, directly funding the creation of affordable housing just around the corner.
“Ever since East Liberty’s first community plan in 1999, long-time residents have made it clear that they wanted to break up the concentrations of poverty that existed in the neighborhood and bring in new opportunities,” explained ELDI Deputy Director Skip Schwab. “To achieve that vision, a healthy mix of affordable and market-rate housing is essential.”
Maintaining that balance demands creative financing solutions to fund affordable housing, whether that’s through the Federal Home Loan Bank or New Markets Tax Credits. This approach represents another tool in our belt.
“It’s a huge change that I thought was incredibly innovative and really forward looking,” explained Lee. “Most developers use federal funds to build affordable housing. It’s normally mixed-income housing with a percentage of units open for Section 8 certificate holders. That is one way of achieving economic diversity in a neighborhood but not the only way.”
As students began designing the houses, it was crucial that they had a thorough understanding of the neighborhood and the needs of the community. Working under the supervision of John Folan, director of UDBS and current head of the University of Arkansas’s Fay Jones School Department of Architecture, the students met three times a week in the studio and collaborated closely with ELDI and East Liberty realtor Sarah Madia of RE/MAX Select Realty to develop all of the architectural designs and renderings.
“I created a program to educate the students on new construction and what’s happening in the East End, not just with ELDI, but with different developers, builders, and homeowners,” remembered Madia.
Students visited new construction that was being built throughout the East End to understand things like handicap accessibility, how to build on old urban soil, and more.
The result was homes that fit within the fabric of the community while not playing by all of the normal Pittsburgh rules.
“Pittsburgh is a very conservative marketplace in terms of housing, so if we talk to any realtor, the main floor has to have a living room, dining room, kitchen, powder room, and the second floor has to have three bedrooms and two baths. It just becomes super formulaic,” explained Lee. “The students really flipped the script.”
Thinking that the homes might appeal to a young Google engineer or roboticist, the students created an open first floor, put the master bedroom suite on the third floor with a roof deck, and then added two bedrooms on the second floor in case the buyer decided to start a family or wanted a home office.
With pandemic-related delays, the students weren’t around to see the project through to the end, but TAI + LEE, architects worked with ELDI to realize the vision they created.
The results were worth the wait. Luxury finishes were used throughout the homes, including engineered hardwood floors, quartz countertops, and unique glass walls accenting the stairwells. The façade is covered in a unique concrete cladding called TAKTL NOW, which is made from re-purposed concrete cut-offs from TAKTL’s Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC) panel production line.
“It was a really beautiful moment of architecture. I had numerous potential buyers comment on the home’s floor plans and features, including the angled walls and oversized glass exterior doors and windows which welcomed sunlight inside, ” Madia shared. “People could tell it was thoughtfully designed.”
By March, both St. Clair homes sold for over $700,000, and the profits, alongside funds from New Markets Tax Credits, have gone on to subsidize the development of 5641 and 5708 Rural Street for affordable homeownership.
We are using the same model elsewhere in the neighborhood as well. Just across the street from these homes, our sale of land parcels to a private developer is supporting the construction of two affordable homeownership opportunities only a half-block away—5636 and 5634 Rural Street.
In the end, the collaboration served not only as a learning experience for students, but hopefully, the wider building and development community as well.
“I hope I live long enough to see this idea of economic integration catch on—mixing market rate with affordable housing solutions. I think it can benefit communities across the country and improve the quality of life in all of our neighborhoods,” said Lee.