Pittsburgh’s reputation as a place of culinary excitement led Karl Cureton to consider moving his barbeque business here from Virginia. That consideration became more serious in 2016 when he met Daniel Berkowitz, co-founder of a real estate company called Atlas Development.
“He found me and knew I was interested in Pittsburgh because it was the up-and-coming place to be for foodies,” Cureton said, describing Berkowitz’s interest in him as a courtship, which led to a tour of a commercial space on Broadway Avenue in Beechview.
“I came up here to Beechview and saw the space and told him I’d have to think about it,” Cureton said. Berkowitz even offered to rent him a house in Beechview.
Later that year, Cureton decided to uproot his business, Brothas BBQ, and life in Virginia and bring his cooker and recipes to Pittsburgh.
Steve Tolin also began conversations in 2016 with Berkowitz to move his Special FX Makeup Studio from the East End to Beechview.
“He had a perfect building for me that was very affordable to rent,” Tolin said, explaining that Berkowitz allowed him to alter the space as needed to create set pieces and other special effects props.
“We were both interested in developing Beechview,” Tolin said. “It’s a gem that has never really been polished.”
So Tolin took Berkowitz up on the offer, moving his business into a building on Broadway. Tolin’s affection for Berkowitz grew to the point where he trusted the landlord to watch his kids, and he said that he would have been willing to get into a physical fight for him.
Cureton and Tolin say special arrangements they had with Berkowitz made them financially vulnerable and they were eventually evicted from properties owned by their erstwhile friend, business partner and confidant.
Tolin and Cureton were among the people and organizations pulled into a business romp adorned in flashy promises of revitalization, but with ominous notes of deja vu.
The company that drew them in now faces financial challenges. In February, a bank filed 12 foreclosure lawsuits against limited liability companies [LLCs] tied to Atlas Development. The lawsuits are the latest unraveling of a company whose owners were once hailed as a “dynamic duo” poised to energize Beechview.
They pitched their work as a way for Beechview to recover from the disappointments of developer Bernardo Katz, who bought numerous neighborhood properties in the early aughts but became a fugitive after federal prosecutors charged him with bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy. From 2016 through 2019, Atlas sparked hopes of reclaiming fallow businesses in the neighborhood through promises of a jazz club, a hostel and more.
Just eight years ago, the prospect of Atlas taking on Beechview buildings had then-city Councilor Natalia Rudiak “doing backflips about this potential development on Broadway” and drew what was called “strong support” from Mayor Bill Peduto. Phyllis DiDiano, president of the Beechview Area Concerned Citizens, called their efforts “a move in the right direction.”
Few of Atlas’ promises would be delivered.
“People thought he would be able to do something that he ended up not being able to do,” said state Sen. Wayne Fontana, D-Brookline, who represents the area and is also a real estate broker. “Berkowitz wanted to grab everything he could. He wanted all of Beechview. He had grand plans. I think he bit off more than he could chew.”
While Atlas Development continues to operate dozens of rentals in the neighborhood, Berkowitz left for Florida to take a full-time job selling government bonds for an at-war Israel and his business partner, Ben Samson, has stepped away from the firm’s daily operations.
Samson said in a phone interview that the company is no longer actively developing in the area.
Berkowitz didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment, and Israel Bonds declined to make him available.
“I don’t think Daniel is a bad person. I love Daniel,” Tolin said. “But I don’t know what the story is behind the money and his development. … And I was the victim of that in the end.”
Founding and acquisition
Berkowitz recruited Squirrel Hill native Samson, who has a background in architecture, to found Atlas Development. The company created LLCs and partnerships with names like Beechview Community I LP and bought at least 50 properties in Beechview between 2016 and 2019.
“We’re the biggest investor in the neighborhood in the last 50 years,” Samson said. ”We stabilized housing in the neighborhood. … We did a good job to not make it the next North Braddock,” he said, referring to a Mon Valley borough beset by abandonment.
“I remember when he came in with big, grandiose plans and wanted to pretty much redevelop all of Broadway Avenue at one point with jazz clubs and housing,” said city Councilor Anthony Coghill, who lives in Beechview. “He single-handedly was trying to control the market.”
When they began investing in Beechview, Samson said, people could rent a whole house for $280 a month — a market he said “wasn’t sustainable.”
“It was going towards McKeesport,” he said. “We maybe were naive or narcissistic for thinking we could turn it around. But we helped stabilize.”
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The company bought various residential buildings along with commercial properties on the neighborhood’s main drag, Broadway Avenue.
Samson said they sought tenants who were looking for cheaper rent.
“We called the people moving there ‘East End value refugees’ once Highland Park became expensive,” Samson said.
URA partnership
One of the few surviving businesses that Atlas Development signed is Sorgatron Media, a podcast network at 1619 Broadway, a building once owned by Katz. The Urban Redevelopment Authority [URA] took ownership of the property in 2008. And in 2016, one of Atlas Development’s LLCs bought the property from the URA for $25,000.
Tolin lived in Beechview between 1999 and 2020. After moving his special effects business to various locations, he signed a lease for 1701 Coast Ave.with Berkowitz in 2016 and stayed there until he was evicted through a property management company in 2020.
“I signed on, and he was a great landlord,” Tolin said, adding that Berkowitz gave him a $30,000 interest-free loan to renovate the space he was renting.
“During that time I was there, he would bring suits, developers, coming by,” Tolin said. Berkowitz was showing them the types of businesses he was attracting to the neighborhood. “He’s a mover and a shaker.”
While Tolin settled into his new building, Cureton moved into an apartment owned by Atlas Development and Berkowitz began planning a restaurant for 1600 Broadway, another property once owned by Katz and then by the URA. Berkowitz was in talks with the URA to buy the property but the purchase was never made because Atlas’ financial state didn’t appease the URA, according to Robert Rubinstein, the executive director of the organization at the time.
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Rubinstein said the government agency was “supportive of anyone really willing to invest in neighborhoods” if they had the support of local council members and state representatives. Articles at the time reflect that Atlas had the support of Rudiak and Fontana. Rudiak didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Rubinstein, now a private consultant for the URA, explained that under his leadership the URA was interested in partnering with private organizations to rehabilitate homes and spur commercial development in low-to-moderate-income neighborhoods, including Beechview.
“We wanted to take those properties from Katz, and our job wasn’t to hold properties; it’s to get them in the hands of private investors and get taxes going again,” Rubinstein said. “We marketed those properties for maybe two decades and when you have somebody with experience in development and capital, that was what we were looking for.”
He said Atlas Development approached them with what appeared to be a strong financial foundation and the company already had several properties in the neighborhood. So the URA began discussions to sell 1619 Broadway and a few other properties, including 1600 and 1601 Broadway.
While the sale of the first property went through, the others didn’t.
“He had proposals but he never met that threshold of having construction and financing in place,” Rubinstein said. “That apparently never materialized.”
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Samson wrote in an email that they weren’t able to overcome the higher-than-expected costs of engineering and construction.
“Ultimately when it came time, the numbers were too great for us and the URA to gap [finance] the project,” Samson wrote. “We then went out to every state and local foundation to see if we could cobble together grants and were unsuccessful. All in all, we never received any public funding from the URA or others and Dan and I lost a lot of personal funds on those buildings.”
Is Beechview better off?
Coghill said Berkowitz “had big, high-falutin plans. … Now he controls a lot of the residential properties here. I’d rather see it going to people who need homes, not controlled by him from Florida.”
The fact that fistfuls of those properties are going into foreclosure cuts both ways, said Coghill.
“They could be caught up in bureaucracy, deteriorating into nothing. If the roof’s leaking, it can cause big problems if no one attends to it,” said Coghill, a professional roofer.
On the other hand, foreclosure could put the properties into the sights of the Pittsburgh Land Bank, the councilor said. “Hopefully we can get those properties into city hands, whether they be for affordable housing or homeownership.”
Samson said their work helped the neighborhood recover from the economic depression caused by Katz.
“We leave the development side of Beechview in a much better place than it was 10 years ago,” he said.
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But more than eight years later, little of their commercial plans have materialized aside from a podcast network that replaced Tolin’s business.
“I’m still putting things back together,” Cureton said, with hope that he will be able to find investors to open up a barbeque joint like he originally envisioned.
“The basic idea was to get to a place where we were bottling sauce,” Cureton said. “It was supposed to be a farm-to-table thing here.”
He said he was left homeless “for a while” after Berkowitz evicted him.
Coghill said the foreclosures are a setback, but not a fatal one for the neighborhood.
“I am so enthused about the direction of Beechview, except for some of the housing issues with Berkowitz,” he said. “It hurts our housing market but the changes that are going on in Beechview are much bigger than that.”
Correction (3/29/24): A previous version of the story misstated the address of Special FX Makeup Studio.
Eric Jankiewicz is PublicSource’s economic development reporter, and can be reached at ericj@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ericjankiewicz.
This story was fact-checked by Sarah “SJ” Liez.
