Today’s announcement by Concord Sierra of another hotel in the Strip District points out just how strong the hospitality market is in Pittsburgh. The 131-room hotel will be built at 1100 Smallman, where Schreiber Real Estate had planned apartments. Although no construction team was announced, Concord has worked with Continental Building Systems to build its last few hotels in Pittsburgh. Ridgetop Hospitality also got headlines for moving forward with hotels in Wheeling and Waynesburg. Concord’s project would mark the 90th hotel started in metro Pittsburgh since 2005, with 52 started since the beginning of 2012.

JLL interviewed development teams last week for the CMU Gateway project, a 425,000 sq. ft. office/hotel/convention space to be built in Junction Hollow along Forbes Avenue. Interviewed were teams that included Elmhurst/Alter Group, Longfellow Real Estate Partners, Walnut Capital, Oxford Development, Gateway Development and Wexford/BioMed.

Bids came in Sept. 4 for the new $25.7 million Muse Elementary in Canon McMillan School District. The low bidders for the general construction package were within 2% of each other:

1-Waller Corp.  $18,117,800; 2-Nello Construction  $18,387,000; 3-Vendrick Construction  $18,596,000

Leonard S. Fiore Inc. started work on the new WalMart at 7500 University Blvd in Moon Township. The 153,950 sq. ft. store is the first new WalMart to be built since the store built behind the Northern Lights Shopping Center in 2012. The lack of big box construction is a testament to the new retail landscape. The Rivers Casino awarded the contract for its $1 million connector project to Skanska USA. Rycon Construction was selected to do the buildout of Apple’s 26,000 square foot space at Three Crossings.

Alcoa is taking proposals from PJ Dick, Graycor, Massaro, Turner, Landau and Triple C Construction on Sept. 25 for another early phase of its $60 million Technical Center expansion in Upper Burrell in Westmoreland County.