The old Robinson Township Municipal Building has a new owner.
One Thousand Church Hill Road LLC purchased the building earlier this month for $1.35 million, and the new owner said last week that he hopes to use a portion of the building for medical offices.
Dr. Craig Oser, a plastic surgeon who currently rents office space in the Heritage Valley Medical Neighborhood on Park Manor Boulevard, said he was in the market to buy a building and the structure at 1000 Church Hill Road should meet his needs.
Oser said he is the sole partner in the limited liability corporation that purchased the building.
The two-story building features some 58,000 square feet of space, but the township was using just over half of that. Officials began looking for a new municipal complex nearly a decade ago and eventually chose to purchase a building at 5440 Campbells Run Road.
That building now serves as the township’s municipal complex.
Oser said he would use roughly 4,500 square feet of space for his own office, and he plans to find medical-oriented tenants for at least some of the remaining space.
“We’re still getting bids from contractors on doing the buildout,” Oser said last week. “As of now, we want to make it part medical.”
Oser said he expects it will take six to eight months before the medical buildout is complete and he can begin seeing patients in his new office.
Township Manager Frank Piccolino said the new owners have not submitted any sort of building plans or permit applications. The property is zoned C-3, which allows for medical offices.
Oser said there’s plenty to like about the space at 1000 Church Hill Road.
“The location is unbelievable,” he said. “It’s right behind the Market District and right off the Parkway (Interstate 376). The accessibility is incredible.”
Oser, who has been renting from Heritage Valley for the last four years and before that rented space from Trinity Health System above Ditka’s restaurant, said he had been looking to purchase his own office space for about five years. He said other buildings were available in a three- to five-mile radius, but none of them had as much space as the Church Hill Road property.
“This allows me to do some other things with the building – bring other people in,” he said. “I think this would make a great medical mall.”
The sale price included the former municipal building as well as some adjoining land and a parking lot at Zesta Drive. One tenant – EMS West, a nonprofit entity that provides technical assistance to the emergency medical services system throughout Western Pennsylvania — will remain in place.
The township Board of Commissioners adopted a resolution in April authorizing the execution of the sale agreement, and the deed was recorded with the Allegheny County Division of Real Estate on July 11.
The township opened a new municipal complex in early May, occupying a 30,000-square-foot building that previously was part of the Calgon Carbon Corp. holdings off Campbells Run Road.
The new complex features township offices, a Board of Commissioners meeting room, the township library, the Robinson Township Historical Society quarters, several classrooms and 12,000 square feet of indoor recreational space.
According to the deed that was transferred July 11, the former municipal building on Church Hill Road was conveyed to the township by Dollar Bank in December of 1990. According to a published report in the Oct. 3, 1990, edition of The Pittsburgh Press, the township paid $2.6 million for what was referred to as the Beecham Products’ former corporate headquarters.
At that same time, the Community College of Allegheny County entered into a 10-year lease to use 16,000 square feet of space on the first floor.
The township funded the purchase through a $3.65 million general obligation bond issue, according to that 1990 report.
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