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A group of local and out-of-town developers and property owners say the time is right for Downtown Pittsburgh and combined are investing well over $1 billion in private money in residential, office and retail projects.

Lucas Piatt, vice president-real estate for Millcraft Industries Inc., speaks for the group that is on the verge of remaking Downtown.

"We care about Pittsburgh. We could have gone to growth areas such as Charlotte, but decided Pittsburgh is where we wanted to be," said the younger Piatt who, with father Jack, guides Millcraft Industries of Canonsburg, Washington County.

Piatt, financial services giant PNC Financial Services Group, Duquesne University and Point Park University, Massaro Corp., McHolme Builders are just some of the names combining to invest Downtown.

No one is calling their projects -- about 18 in total -- a revitalization or a Renaissance III, but for the sheer number, the moniker fits. One very big difference is that Renaissance I in the 1950s and Renaissance II two decades ago, focused primarily on office buildings -- skyscrapers that reshaped the city's skyline.

For this building boom, development is not so much about high-rises and 9-to-5 occupancy, but rather condominiums, apartments and 24/7 living.

Urban planners and designers nationwide agree that one of the key drivers to the construction activity in Pittsburgh is the emphasis on new residential space. According to available information, no fewer than 1,540 condominiums, townhouses and apartments recently opened, are under construction or soon will be built in the Downtown area.

"Generally, the revival of downtown is due to residential influx," said Troy Russ, director, Transportation and Urban Design Group for the Orlando, Fla.-based firm Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin.

And what's happening locally is being mimicked nationwide, in cities of all sizes. "I've been in this business for 35 years, and I've never seen such pronounced demand for space of all kinds in downtowns," said Doyle Hyett, chairman of consulting firm HyettPalma Inc., Alexandria, Va.

The emphasis on downtown living here and elsewhere is occurring for a variety of reasons, experts said, some based on changing demographics, others predicated on people fed up with cookie-cutter suburbs.

"Demographic shifts in the population certainly are helping downtowns," said Chris Beynon, director of planning and development service for the design firm Moore Iacofano Goltsman Inc., Berkeley, Calif. "The empty nesters don't want to take care of that big yard anymore, while the young professionals want to be close to work and things to do."

Beynon said that 10 years ago, the city of Denver had few people living in its downtown. A concerted effort has led to roughly 10,000 people now inhabiting the Mile High City's downtown.

"Vancouver, Canada, probably is the poster child for downtown living," Beynon said. "It has 10s of thousands of downtown residents."

Today's high gasoline prices are making downtown living more attractive, and the ability to walk rather than ride is appealing, experts say. "People want to walk to shops and cafes, and possibly walk to work," said John Stainback, president of Stainback Public/Private Real Estate, Houston.

Another very big factor for the shift downtown is boredom. Baby Boomers for the most part have spent all their lives in the suburbs, enjoying the same malls, same stores, same things to do. Now 40, 50, 60 years later, they want something different.

"A lot of Baby Boomers grew up in suburbia, and they're bored with it," said Douglas Kelbaugh, Dean of the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

"In any suburb, you have your Wal-Mart, you have your McDonald's -- it doesn't matter where you are," said Moore Iacofano Goltsman's Beynon, whose family is originally from the Kittanning-Butler area. "But there is no other place like Downtown Pittsburgh. It's unique."

While suburbanites are rapidly rediscovering downtown, so, too, are developers and, ironically, political leaders, experts agree.

"The elected leadership in cities finally is realizing that a healthy downtown means a healthy city," said HyettPalma's Hyett, whose father is a Pittsburgher. "Downtowns that function likes neighborhoods are the most successful."

Another key to successful downtown revitalization is where the developers call home, and to make sure success or failure is not linked to just one big project.

"We look at PNC's involvement in Downtown as another positive sign of the potential for development," Piatt said.

"No one project will turn around a downtown," Beynon said. "If you hang your hat on just one project, it will lose its cachet."

"Everybody is looking for the white knight to come in and turn around a downtown, and that guy may be sitting on a horse at the corner of Main and First," Hyett said. "A local developer with his reputation on the line will give 1,000 percent. And insiders usually are the only ones willing to take the risks needed to make a project work."

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