You’ve definitely heard it. Maybe you’ve thought it. Or you may have muttered it out loud. As new luxury apartment buildings have sprung up across Pittsburgh, many have gestured towards the high rents and questioned who they are for — who actually lives in them, anyway?
But despite their appearance, Pittsburgh’s luxury buildings actually help lower your rent by helping fill demand in the market. And the people that live in them are normal Pittsburghers.
WESA spoke with six current or former luxury apartment dwellers to understand why they chose to rent in such a building and their thoughts on the overall experience.
Claire Collison, Edge 1909
Job: Was a medical resident, just moved to California after completing her surgery residency. Lived in Pittsburgh (and this building) for 5 years.
Rent/space: Around $2,000/month for a studio including covered parking ($250) and random fees (pet fee, valet trash fee, some utilities). Her rent also went up $50 to $100 each year and was $2,146 when she moved out.
Why a luxury apartment?
Collison moved to Pittsburgh to begin a medical residency and says she mostly looked at luxury apartments to provide some peace of mind and potential social connections.
“I knew I was going to be working 80 hours a week on average, so I wanted to have a place that, if something broke, I never had to worry about fixing it,” Collison said. “If I lived in a little apartment by myself as a single person, I was just kind of worried I might get a little lonely.”
“I didn't really go to any of the social events, but I liked having that option,” she added.
Plus, there were the amenities.
“I knew I'd be busy, and I would want to have that gym — I'm not gonna lie, I didn't go to it a lot,” Collison said. “I sound a little bougie, but I wanted covered parking because I did not want to be shoveling snow at 4:30 in the morning. A lot of residents have to be at work at 5 a.m., and I knew coming from LA that was not my strength.”
The studio was all she could afford on a resident’s salary, and it was tight at times. But looking back, Collison says she’d likely do it again — although maybe with a less expensive luxury apartment.
“I think it has a lot of positives for the kind of people in my boat — they're single, not from the area, busy,” she said. “But it definitely was expensive.”
“Not gonna lie, when I moved in I did feel guilt because I could tell the Strip had history behind it,” Collison said. “And so when I saw this building, it was kind of like an eyesore and along the river and blocking the view of Downtown.”
“Like, oh, I'm ruining the neighborhood,” she added.
Steven Garand, 2626 South Side Flats
Job: Software engineer, works from home.
Rent/space: Around $2,000/month for a lofted one bedroom with a view of Downtown Pittsburgh.
Why a luxury apartment?
“At first it was the amenities, the pool and the hot tub. And, you know, just seeing all the nice stuff in here,” Garand said. “But then I grew to really love the sense of community that you get from a place where it's all open in a courtyard. Everybody can see each other down there, walk by, chat, sit around the fire pit.”
Garand has been in the Pittsburgh area for about 30 years and once owned a house in Squirrel Hill, but was previously renting a 2 bedroom apartment in Shadyside for $1,500/month before he moved into 2626 South Side Flats.
“It was a very different, old kind of Victorian house with a couple of fireplaces in it and several different levels.” Garand said.
He’s 63 years old and plans to retire in a few years, but will keep renting.
“I have a financial advisor that reviewed all of my retirement stuff, and he says, you're in great shape, just don't ever buy a house,” Garand said.
“There's a sense of guilt living here sometimes, too, because between here and The Glasshouse, which is the other big luxury apartment two miles up the trail, there's so many homeless people that you see in tents and just trying to scrape by in the cold, in the wet and the rain,” Garand said. “So, you know, there's a sense of, why can I afford this, and why is my life here? And theirs are so different.”
Nick Trocano, 2626 South Side Flats
Job: Project manager in the energy industry
Rent/space: $1,520/month for a studio, plus $150 parking and $35 pet rent for his cat. Has been there since May 2024 on a 14-month lease, but is about to move out.
Why a luxury apartment?
When he moved in, Trocano says he didn’t plan on staying for that long — he grew up in the South Hills and was thinking about leaving Pittsburgh with his girlfriend, but her father got sick and they ended up staying longer than expected.
Previously, he was splitting a house with a friend in the South Side Flats just three blocks away for $1450/month. Location and flexibility were the deciding factors that drew him to the building.
“It seemed simple to just hop into a place because I didn't want to go in and rent somebody's house or something, and then, you know, potentially have to leave early,” Trocano said.
Trocano says his apartment and the building are in decent shape and the amenities are nice, but he didn’t really use them a ton. Overall, he doesn’t think the luxury apartment was worth what it costs and prefers renting from a mom-and-pop landlord.
To save money, he’s moving in with his girlfriend in Lawrenceville where they’re splitting a house for $1,500 — much less than a one bedroom in the building, which he says were running from $2,000 to $2,300, plus fees.
“I went to the leasing office and I'm like, ‘Hey, can we maybe negotiate a little bit? I've been a good tenant, yada, yada, yada,’” Trocano said. “And they're like, ‘Well, we have this software and it pretty much projects our revenues and it tells us what rent should be this month for this term, so you can't really negotiate.’”
“You almost feel, like, commoditized, and I didn't really feel that way until I started talking to the person about renewing my lease,” he added. “And then I'm thinking about, like, ‘Oh, wow. You know, they just treat people as cash flow.’ And they sell this experience to you. And it's not really any different than living in most other places.”
Andrew Horwitz, Arsenal 201
Job: Software engineer.
Rent/space: $1,700/month for a one bedroom from 2021-2022. He was sent a lease renewal for $2,000 but moved out instead. He’s now renting a 1 bedroom apartment in a Bloomfield row house for $1,100 that has similar square footage and in-unit amenities (laundry, central air, dishwasher).
Why a luxury apartment?
Horowitz moved to Pittsburgh from New York City after getting a remote job with UPMC, and Arsenal 201 was the same rent he was paying there.
“I wanted to make a lateral rent price move,” Horowitz said. “Pittsburgh is one of the few places in the world where I could live in one of those apartments at, like, a decent rate, because it's a relatively cheap cost of living city.”
Plus, it was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the bigger complexes had model apartments and availability that was good for a sight-unseen move. But after one year, he decided to leave due to a rent increase. Additionally, he felt that he never got the benefits painted by the advertising, except for access to the amenities.
“People say the new buildings like that are adult dorms — not incorrect. I didn't make friends with the community,” Horowitz said. “I didn't have a reason to stay there, let’s put it that way.”
Horowitz also didn’t like the big corporate structure that owns and runs these types of luxury buildings. He says the building staff at Arsenal were fine, just overworked and constrained by bureaucracy, which is very different from his current situation.
“Right now, I have an amazing landlord in this place, and it's one guy with, like, two people underneath him who own maybe 15 properties across the city,” Horowitz said. “I would actively recommend seeking out the landlord that I have right now, and I can't believe I'm saying that.”
Dana O’Conner, Brewer’s Block
Job: Machine learning research scientist at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
Rent/space: $2,860/month plus utilities for a 2 bedroom. She and her partner are the first people to live in the apartment. They moved in last June and just renewed their lease with no rent increase.
Why a luxury apartment?
O’Conner has lived in Pittsburgh since 2019 and went to Carnegie Mellon University for graduate school, which is where she met her partner. But now, they have higher paying jobs.
“We were like, oh, we might want to try living somewhere a little nicer than the converted Victorians that we have been able to afford when we were grad students,” O’Conner said.
Previously, they were paying $1,950/month for a 2 bedroom.
“We did our laundry at that laundromat on Ellsworth when we lived in our old apartment building, because we lived by Noodlehead,” O’Conner said.
Both wanted to try living in a different neighborhood than Shadyside, and she says Brewer’s Block was a good location for their needs. Plus, there were the amenities — things like central air, in-unit laundry and a gym.
“My friends have really enjoyed that I have lived in this building too, because they like using the pool,” O’Conner said.
Overall, she says they’ve had a good experience besides some small issues with appliances. They want to hopefully buy a house in a year, and so aren’t planning to stay super long term.
“My fiance and I are both not from Pittsburgh, and we really do want to stay here,” O’Conner said. “We plan on staying here for a long time, hopefully. So, be nice to your local grad student, and they might want to live in Pittsburgh.”
O’Conner says she’s always felt a little guilty about having a place to live while others do not, no matter the apartment.
“I think that's just like, kind of baked into the little system that we have here — and homelessness has only gotten worse in Pittsburgh,” O’Conner said.
But she doesn’t feel guilty about living in a luxury building, because she can afford it and is freeing up cheaper space elsewhere in the rental market.
“It's the reason I don't go to thrift stores because I'm like, I'm not in the socioeconomic class that that is catered to, and I shouldn't be taking resources from people that need to shop in thrift stores,” O’Connor said.
Nick Rizzio, The Clark Building
Job: Works in software for a bank.
Rent/space: $1,100/month for a 1 bedroom.
Why a luxury apartment?
Rizzio just graduated from Penn State and moved to Pittsburgh for his first job out of college. He was an RA there, so this is also his first apartment.
He doesn’t have a car, and says a major priority in moving to Pittsburgh was to live in a walkable community with good transit access, which led him to Downtown. And he says going carless saves him a lot of money, which balances out the rent.
“My transportation costs are $50 a month,” Rizzio said.
He also wanted somewhere with central air conditioning.
“That criteria alone totally blew out, like 60 or 70% of the apartments in Pittsburgh,” Rizzio said. “Beyond that, I just wanted to find an apartment that was nice, like something that I could feel comfortable living in.”
“Everyone at Penn State has a horrible landlord story, so I just didn't really want to have anything like that happen to me,” he added.
The Clark Building is one of the older Downtown luxury options, so Rizzio says the rent is a much better deal — but he still gets amenities like A/C, a dishwasher, in-unit laundry, a gym, rooftop deck and a nice view. He grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, but he likes Pittsburgh more. He says it’s a cheaper and better-run city, and he plans to renew his lease.
“I don't think that people should feel guilty for moving to a new city — I think that should be celebrated in our society,” Rizzio said. “On the flip side, I will say that the local authorities — the local government and whatnot — they have a responsibility to make sure that we're building enough homes for people who want to live in places.”
Coming from State College, which has a “severe” housing shortage …
“I would listen to neighborhood associations and local politicians talk about the housing shortage as though it was a problem of ‘too many people want to live in our town and we have to keep them out’ — and I just think it's deeply wrong to hold that kind of idea,” Rizzio said. “If you're inclusive of everyone, then that means that you must accept more homes in your community.”
