Son also rises, as CEO group honors Lucas Piatt
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
Lucas Piatt, head of Millcraft Investments and son of the late Southpointe visionary Jack Piatt, carries on his father’s tradition of development.
Rick Shrum/Observer-Reporter
Millcraft Investments president Lucas Piatt is introduced by Jeff Kotula, president of the Washington County Chamber of Commerce.
The Piatt family – appropriately – was at center stage in Southpointe Wednesday evening.
Lucas B. Piatt, president and chief operating officer of Millcraft Investments, was the featured speaker during the Southpointe CEO Assoc.’s annual Spirit of Southpointe Award and Reception. He also was an honoree, who was presented with the association’s 2021 Jack B. Piatt Award.
Thanks, dad!
Jack, Lucas’ father, was the visionary behind and founder of the mixed-use park in Cecil Township. One night in the late 1980s, while motoring along Interstate 79 with harness racing legend Delvin Miller, he was inspired to build something great on a massive tract thick with trees. His plan started with a golf course development and evolved into Southpointe.
Jack Piatt launched Millcraft in 1957 and crafted it into a real estate development and management giant, which his son runs from its national headquarters in the park. The father is now gone, having passed away in September 2020 at 92.
The 806-acre park, literally and figuratively, has been center stage to this family for more than three decades. Lucas, 45, was the focal point of a one-on-one discussion with Evan Rosenberg, publisher of the Pittsburgh Business Times, at the Hilton Garden Inn.
Before an audience of about 150, Piatt answered question’s about Southpointe, and his company’s interests in Pittsburgh’s downtown and North Side.
The pandemic, he said, has hit Southpointe hard. Piatt cited a recent report by Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., a real estate services firm, saying office space there is at about 37% vacancy. Expressing several times that he is “an optimist,” Piatt nonetheless estimated that “it will take at least three years” to come back.
“I still think being in the office is critical to the culture,” he said. “People will come back, but a lot of people don’t want to commit to long-term leases.”
He said the delta variant could disrupt companies’ plans for Southpointe and Pittsburgh.
Flashing his optimist side again, Piatt said workers have been returning to downtown Pittsburgh, and that several restaurants there have been doing well. He and his company have a formidable presence in the erstwhile Steel City, with Piatt Place, Market Square Place, Lumiere and Tower Two-Sixty.
They also have a major stake on the city’s North Side, along the Ohio River. Millcraft recently made its first property buys to develop Esplanade, a $450 million project the company initially promoted in 2018. Plans call for redevelopment of 15 acres north of the Rivers Casino, where residences, a hotel, marina, Ferris wheel and other attractions are to be built.
Piatt said it is “truly a riverlife-facing project. It brings the river into the project.”
Construction of a two-acre, white sand beach Blue Lagoon have been abandoned.
“We did love it. It was so audacious,” Piatt said. “But it was too large and would have been a huge failure in winter.”
He hopes to begin construction of Esplanade within the next year and a half.
Although Pittsburgh will getting a new leader, Piatt said he anticipates Pittsburgh mayor-elect Ed Gainey to carry through on his plans to upgrade downtown.
Several times during the hour-long session, Piatt lavishly lauded his role model – his father.
“He had a great business gut. Whatever he said would happen, it would become true. He said, ‘Get it done right, get it done now,'” Piatt said of his father.
“Southpointe was an absolute reflection of his vision. The public-private partnership there has been great.”
This year’s Spirit of Southpointe Award included a $10,000 donation to the Jack B. Piatt Scholarship Fund. The fund supports Washington County students planning for further education in college or the trades.
The Washington County Chamber of Commerce hosted the event.
“We have been honored to present this award to numerous business leaders that have shared Jack Piatt’s vision of thinking big and driving our area forward,” chamber president Jeff Kotula said. “We also honor his memory by providing opportunities for those who will be the next leaders of our region.”