Our Work

Leveraging Assets to Spur Innovation & Positively Impact Local Communities

Client
  • University of Pittsburgh
Client Type
  • Higher Education
Location

Pittsburgh, PA

Practice Areas
  • Anchor Strategy

The University of Pittsburgh is one of the Midwest’s premier research universities and a leading regional economic anchor for Western Pennsylvania. It’s also a major property owner in the communities of Oakland, the Hill District, and other urban neighborhoods along the Monongahela River.

The University of Pittsburgh is one of the Midwest’s premier research universities and a leading regional economic anchor for Western Pennsylvania. It’s also a major property owner in the communities of Oakland, the Hill District, and other urban neighborhoods along the Monongahela River. The University of Pittsburgh (“Pitt”) is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading urban research universities, routinely ranking among the top 20 universities in the United States for research and development expenditures by the National Science Foundation. The university plays a crucial role in the metro’s ongoing economic reinvention as it pivots to a future driven by science, technology and innovation.

Despite a strong national reputation, the university’s leaders and some of its major benefactors felt that more could be done to put its assets to work in ways that benefited its nearby historic neighborhoods. Similarly, the university had amassed a significant amount of real property and leased assets over the years, such that the Chancellor’s office had difficulty obtaining a clear view of what Pitt owned and leased, why, and if these assets were meeting their highest and best use.

Simply put, the Chancellor and his team recognized Pitt’s potential to better leverage its resources and contribute significantly to Pittsburgh’s growth. The question they faced was not an uncommon one among universities of their size: how?

To help Pitt move from potential to impact, U3 deployed a number of carefully sequenced interventions and strategies. Beginning in 2019 and continuing into the next decade, their work for Pitt has fallen under one of three categories: real estate strategy, capacity building, and anchor initiatives.

U3 Advisors represented Pitt throughout its involvement in the landmark Hazelwood Green project, which is transforming one of the last original industrial plants on the banks of the Monongahela River into a world-class center for technology, research, and innovation. The recently announced “BioForge” is a 185,000-square-foot cell and gene therapy-focused facility that will house the manufacturing operations of Boston-based ElevateBio. The U3 team led aspects of the project programming, land acquisition and development strategy, and leasing to the anchor tenant within the Pitt-owned building. Bioforge leverages Pitt’s excellence in cell and gene research, industry partnerships, and long-standing relationships with the P private foundations that are fostering development on the broader 200-acre brownfield.

U3 further assisted Pitt in advancing its place-based goals through the creation of a Real Estate Strategy that synthesized non-campus core needs and opportunities for the University, current market conditions, and planning objectives for the campus and community. This initiative identified a range of real estate opportunities and prioritized those that met the core principles that underpinned the strategy. Pitt has since been able to efficiently identify, acquire, and develop key properties around the campus, leveraging its real estate assets more effectively. To pursue these targeted opportunities, U3 worked with Pitt to enhance the capacity of Pitt’s Office of Real Estate, which included managing a search process for a new leader for the department.

Along with the real estate focus, U3 Advisors worked with university leadership on a comprehensive Anchor Initiatives plan to direct its inherent economic activity towards historically underserved businesses and communities. This plan included a review of Pitt’s procurement, capital projects contracting, and hiring practices, followed by clear steps to help the university source more talent, goods, and services from the entrepreneurs and businesses in its vicinity.

A new housing incentives program was also designed and launched in order to help more university workers find affordable housing in closer proximity to campus. By using its assets to improve hiring, purchasing, and housing throughout its nearby neighborhoods, Pitt is catalyzing a beneficial and symbiotic relationship between itself and the community it calls home.

Pitt’s leadership initiated an engagement with U3 Advisors because they saw unrealized potential: a greater opportunity to attract and retain more talent and lift up their surrounding neighborhoods in the process. Importantly, U3 not only helped clarify their vision for the future – they have equipped the university with the systems and tools they need to make it happen.

As a result of their ongoing work with U3, Pitt is now driving even greater impact: on campus, in their community, and for the greater Pittsburgh region.

 

Challenge
Although the University of Pittsburgh has evolved as a leading major research institution, University leadership believed it was not meeting its full potential as a neighbor to the historic urban communities around campus, and as an economic engine for Southwest Pennsylvania.
SOLUTION
Pitt has utilized the full breadth and depth of U3 Advisors’ skills. U3 delivered a series of interventions and long-term plans that successively – and successfully – helped Pitt identify specific opportunities for revitalizing commercial corridors; investing strategically in nearby small businesses and workers; and collaborating with other institutions and major funders on transformative projects in line with their shared missions.
IMPACT

Through their work with U3 Advisors, Pitt created concrete, actionable strategies for strategically using their real property holdings, purchasing policies, and housing incentives. U3 further helped them develop the internal capacity to move these plans forward and keep them aligned with the university’s long-term institutional and financial goals.