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A Nordstrom department store belongs Downtown instead of in a suburban mall, said a developer involved in the effort to rebuild Pittsburgh's city core.

"If I'm Nordstrom, I'd want to draw from the widest possible area. If (Nordstrom) were Downtown, it could pull from the North Hills, South Hills and the Monroeville area," said Lucas Piatt, real estate director of Millcraft Industries Inc.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. Chairman and CEO James E. Rohr and Gov. Ed Rendell are expected to announce at a news conference this morning details of a $170 million office/condominium/hotel project on properties PNC owns on the north side of Fifth Avenue adjacent to its headquarters building.

Washington County-based Millcraft last week said it will spend up to $50 million turning the closed Lazarus building Downtown into a condominium complex named Piatt Place with a mix of retail and office space on the first three floors.

Seattle-based Nordstrom, an upscale department store chain known for excellent customer service and top-notch merchandise, backed out of Mayor Tom Murphy's initial plan to rebuild the Downtown core. Nordstrom now is known to be interested in locations at two Pittsburgh-area malls.

PNC will follow Millcraft as the second company to signal a major commitment to rehabilitate the city center, which declined quickly after poor sales prompted the closing of the Lazarus and Lord & Taylor department stores last year.

With the Fifth-Forbes corridor redevelopment gaining traction after those false starts, speculation is building on major retail components.

Nordstrom is once again front and center of the talk.

"It is my understanding that representatives of Nordstrom, at the invitation of Federated Department Stores Inc., visited the Pittsburgh area several weeks ago to look at Federated's properties at Ross Park Mall and South Hills Village," said Herb Burger, chairman of the Pittsburgh Task Force, a private group charged with getting Fifth-Forbes redevelopment moving again.

Neither Simon nor Nordstrom could be reached for comment.

Millcraft's Piatt acknowledges that bringing a Nordstrom to Downtown would require public money, but he says it would be worth it.

In May, Simon Property Group said the upscale chain was considering locating in Ross Park Mall, which it owns.

Both Ross Park and Simon-owned South Hills Village will have department store vacancies early next year. Federated, the parent of Macy's, acquired Kaufmann's parent May Department Stores Co. earlier this year, and has said it will close the South Hills Kaufmann's. In addition, it will relocate the Ross Park Macy's to the existing Kaufmann's and close the existing Macy's.

Bob Gold, a retail broker for CB Richard Ellis/Pittsburgh, said the momentum building Downtown could be enough to make Nordstrom take a second look.

In addition to the Millcraft and PNC projects, the Pittsburgh Task Force is working out an agreement with Washington, D.C.-based developer Madison Marquette to redevelop a block of Urban Redevelopment Authority-owned land between Fifth and Forbes.

Madison Marquette has developed or manages numerous mixed use, retail-focused projects across the country.

Richard Hodos, president of Madison HGDC, a New York-based subsidiary of Madison Marquette, said Downtown can compete if his parent company can develop a comprehensive plan that combines unique-to-Pittsburgh retailers, including local retailers.

He said names such as home goods stores Williams-Sonoma Home and Crate & Barrel and cosmetics and skin care store Sephora have yet to make their way to Pittsburgh. He said a Target discount department store also would make sense to serve the growing residential base.

Hodos said he wouldn't rule out Nordstrom.

He said Nordstrom would be a much stronger player than Lazarus and Lord & Taylor, which he said did not offer anything different from the malls.

"Those names didn't stand for anything unique in Pittsburgh," he said.

After a news conference Saturday, Rendell confirmed his administration's financial support for PNC's plan to construct a 25-story, mixed-use building next to its headquarters Downtown. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported the plans Friday.

The state will provide about $30 million in state loans, grants and tax credits to an office/hotel/condominium complex on Fifth Avenue, as well as for the redevelopment of the former Lazarus building one block east and related infrastructure, the governor said.

Rendell also confirmed that the Reed Smith law firm intends to anchor the 25-story facility, with plans to lease some 200,000 square feet of office space.

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