The Pittsburgh Penguins may become the new owner of the Hunt Armory in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood. The board of the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority approved an agreement on Thursday that would allow the team to purchase the building for $2 million plus costs, if the organization chooses to exercise its option agreement.
“This is not a sale,” said Thomas Link, the agency’s chief development officer. If the Penguins want to buy the National Historic Landmark, “it would come back to the board and to the public.”
The URA bought the building from the state in 2016 for a total of $2 million, and began a public engagement process to decide the building’s future. Residents said they wanted to see an indoor skating rink, and the Pittsburgh Penguins funded the creation of a seasonal rink, the first to operate indoors in the city for a quarter-century. Link said roughly 27,000 people used the rink in the 2022-2023 season.
Craig Dunham, a senior vice president for the Penguins, said the organization hopes to come back to the board by the end of the year to finalize a sale.
“We understand the core principles here of community-serving skating and ice being a priority,” he said. “We look forward to continuing to realize the potential for this amazing building.”
Also on Thursday, the URA board approved spending $2 million to rebuild Bedford Dwellings, the city’s oldest Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh development. The money will help create 123 new homes, 90 of which will be set aside for current residents.
Board chair Kyle Chintalapalli said the new homes will be built before the old ones are demolished.
That way, he said, residents “only have to move once, which we know is critical towards making sure folks have the opportunity to stay in their neighborhoods.”
The project will also include new homes whose prices will range from deeply affordable to market-rate.
