Big Picture: Where are we? Gearing up crawling toward start of Mintwood landscaping project.
Corp Update
- Permitting process for Mintwood continues to drag along. I’m amazed at how complex it is to get permits for this piece of work. Literally, I’ve spent 2x in engineering work. Vs the entire interior of the building, and the permitting process has taken 6 months. Delays fall into a couple of buckets:
- Plans from landscape architect were nowhere near close. I think she knows plants really well, and design well, but she likely hasn’t done ANY permitted work in the City of Pgh.
- Permits spanned 3 different departments and a total of 6 different permits. Some of those permits rely on others being granted, and the city’s tech systems don’t do a very good job of typing them together. A couple of times our applications were sitting in queue, waiting for an approval from another department that wasn’t going to happen bc we’d had an issue- but hadn’t been notified.
- My own lack on knowledge/ learning curve for what all had to be submitted. Sadly, I made multiple submissions to the city only to have them rejected and they’d ask for an additional piece. It would have been great if there was a way to get all of the city’s project requirements in one place, but that’s not even close to the truth.
- At this point we’ve received 5 of the 6 permits we need, and we’re hoping that the last permit comes through quickly. Concrete guys say they are ready to start on Sept 8th, so we shall see.
- HackPgh project is coming along OK. We did a presentation to the membership, and are collecting feedback on the layout. Although folks raise some valid points, I’m of the mind that we will press forward with what we have and iterate. The cabinet carcasses have been built and the drawers are installed. As soon as the Board signs off, we’ll pull the team in for a day to rearrange the shop and get the cabinets installed.
Goals for August
- Receive approval from PLI for construction
- Brace neighboring decks and begin demolition of old parking pad and walls.
- Tax preparations
Entropy Properties LLC 