Nearly two decades after it transformed a shuttered Nabisco factory into one of Pittsburgh's most vibrant mixed-use districts, Walnut Capital is ready to write the next chapter of Bakery Square. The Pittsburgh-based developer presented plans this week for a 199-unit apartment building along Penn Avenue in East Liberty, a project that would add hundreds of new residents to a corridor that has quietly become one of the city's most consequential stretches of real estate.
Walnut Capital's attorney briefed Pittsburgh's Planning Commission on Tuesday on designs for the six-story building, which would occupy a parcel where Shady Avenue meets Penn Avenue, adjacent to Trader Joe's and directly across the street from the recently completed Meridian complex. The building's architecture calls for red brick, white granite, and blue steel accents, fitting neatly into the textured visual identity that Bakery Square has developed over the years.
In addition to the residential units, the project calls for 6,700 square feet of office space and a public plaza along Penn Avenue shaded by a row of trees. Seventy new parking spaces would be added to the site, supplementing what is already available in Bakery Square's existing garages. The building's Penn Avenue sidewalk would be temporarily closed during construction.
A Neighborhood Transformed
To understand what this project means, it helps to remember what Bakery Square was before Walnut Capital arrived. The site was home to a Nabisco bakery that operated for 80 years before the company closed it in 1998, leaving behind a hulking industrial shell at the gateway to East Liberty. After a failed revival attempt in the early 2000s, Walnut Capital and Pittsburgh's Urban Redevelopment Authority purchased the property and began reimagining it from the ground up. Bakery Square's first tenants opened in 2010, and the district has grown steadily since, drawing Google and other prominent tech companies to what was once an industrial dead zone.
The new apartment building represents a deliberate shift in the mix at Bakery Square. When Walnut Capital first drew up expansion plans, the emphasis was on office space, reflecting the pre-pandemic assumption that tech companies would keep absorbing square footage at a fast clip. The COVID-19 pandemic altered that calculus permanently, and the developer scaled back the commercial footprint in favor of housing, responding to a more urgent need across the city. It is a notable pivot, and one that speaks to Walnut Capital's long-term commitment to the corridor rather than a short-term bet on a single asset class.
Community Benefits and Affordable Housing
At least ten of the 199 units, representing five percent of the total, will be set aside as affordable for residents earning between 80 and 120 percent of the area median income. If Walnut Capital secures acceptance into the city housing authority's voucher program, the number of affordable units would increase further. The developer has also entered into a community benefit agreement with the Larimer Consensus Group, committing to fund off-site for-sale affordable housing as part of the deal.
The community benefit agreement reflects the complicated history between Bakery Square's expansion plans and the surrounding neighborhoods of Larimer, Shadyside, and East Liberty. Pittsburgh City Council passed legislation in 2025 to allow Walnut Capital to expand the district's footprint into a specially planned zoning district, unlocking land that had been subject to years of negotiation. The Larimer Consensus Group's involvement in the agreement signals that the expansion is moving forward with genuine community partnership rather than over neighborhood objection.
The Planning Commission is expected to vote on the project at its next scheduled meeting on June 30. If approved, the building would mark the first major residential addition to Bakery Square, deepening the East Liberty corridor's role as a place where Pittsburghers live, work, and gather in the same few walkable blocks. For a city that has spent years trying to fill in the gaps between its strongest neighborhoods, that is exactly the kind of density that matters.