PNC Starts Slow Move to New Building

PNC is ready to open the first portion of its new 23-floor $200 million building downtown. Starting Monday, customers will be able to use the new “flagship” bank branch on the fifth avenue side of the still being completed building. Eventually the structure will host PNC corporate offices, Reed Smith law firm offices, 28 condominiums, and a hotel. PNC Director of Corporate Real Estate Gary Saulson says all of those tenants will strive for different LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System) certification that fit their specific industry or use. Bank branch employees will even be asked to be more environmentally conscious by making small personal changes such as drinking out of reusable mugs rather than disposal Styrofoam cups. Reed Smith will move in at the end of August while PNC plans to move over operations in the first quarter of 2010. Saulson says the company will immediately expand to fill the vacant space I its current buildings. The 185-room hotel will open by January and the park at the corner of 5th and Liberty will open before the G20 summit in September. Saulson says even the park will be environmentally friendly by using native plants and environmentally friendly benches and lighting. The condos are being sold and finished with the expectation that all the work will be done in the next 12 months. A “local” coffee house will take up the rest of the ground floor retail space. Saulson says he feels the building has served as a catalyst for other development downtown including the Piatt Place development, the new YMCA and the retail and residential work on Market Street.