Eighteen parcels in South Oakland will be demolished to make way for a 299-unit, nine-story apartment building.
The proposed apartments will sit on a one-acre site between Atwood Street, Louisa Street and Meyran Avenue. On this block, the 18 parcels will include 17 houses and “It’s Doggin’ It,” a local liquor store.
Molly Martin, a junior natural sciences major, is currently living in one of the units on Meyran Avenue that will be knocked down. When Martin signed her lease, plans for the apartment building were not yet in the works, so she agreed to a move-out date of Aug. 10, 2026. Now, she and her roommates will have to be out of the unit by May 15, 2026.
“I had the plan to try and stay here next year, too,” Martin said. “I was looking forward to living in the same place for two years while I’m in college, so it just sucks.”
Martin currently works as a Pitt PathFinder, which will offer her summer housing if she works with them full-time during the season. If it weren’t for her job, Martin would be scrambling for housing, she said.
“I have a complicated situation at home right now,” Martin said. “If it weren’t for my job, I genuinely don’t think I would know what I would be doing.”
Cami Samuel, a junior marketing major who lives with Martin, on the other hand, is still figuring out where she’ll live for the summer of 2026. According to Samuel, the School of Business strongly encourages summer internships for juniors, which is what she plans to do. However, Samuel is originally from Blue Bell, Pennsylvania — about a 4.5 hour drive from Oakland — so she’s expecting to sublease from someone off-campus rather than move back and forth.
“I was planning on being in Pittsburgh because I would already have an apartment here and it would make it very easy,” Samuel said.
Once Martin and Samuel found out their current apartment won’t be available next year, they searched for a new accommodation and signed a lease on Dawson Street with two other roommates. Now, they’re gearing up for the “complicated” process of moving — including packing, transporting and paying for a storage unit, Martin said.
Samuel, Martin and their other two current roommates signed their current lease in October 2024. Their lease maintains a move-out date of Aug. 10, 2026, and has not been updated or amended.
Their current lease says in the event of a sale or change in ownership of the property, the new owner will give the tenants a 30-day written notice of the lease being cancelled. However, neither Samuel, Martin or their other roommates have received written confirmation of their early move-out. All updates on their property have come through word-of-mouth, text messages or rumors from other Meyran Avenue tenants.
“We’ve all been hearing different things,” Samuel said. “It’s all been very confusing and kind of up in the air. It’s been frustrating.”
Martin is skeptical about the incoming apartment complex and its accessibility for college students. She noted how difficult it can be to find affordable housing in Oakland, especially in more modern apartment buildings, like Here Pittsburgh — where rent is anywhere from $1,100 to $2,200 per month.
“This is a peak location for Oakland — we’re very close to everything,” Martin said. “Even $800 a month, per person, is a lot for a place. But those new apartment buildings are always going to be well over $1,000 per person, at least.”
The incoming building is being developed by Subtext, a real estate company that specializes in student-based housing and, according to its website, is one of the top three student housing developers.
Subtext reached an agreement with three different owners on the block of Meyran, Louisa and Atwood to purchase their buildings. The details of this agreement are private.
Subtext and the City of Pittsburgh started planning for the building in February 2025, according to Christian Umbach, a senior planner for the City. The new apartments will be part of the Oakland Plan, a 10-year outline for the neighborhood’s development and betterment.
One of the Oakland Plan’s main goals is to “grow housing and job opportunities in Oakland,” according to its website. To work within Oakland’s limited space, the Plan will increase unit density and building height to welcome more residents through projects like the Subtext-developed apartment site.
The increase in housing is meant to address Oakland’s high demand for housing, “primarily due to the large and growing student population,” Umbach said. Concentrating student housing in larger buildings near campus could help make way for other South Oakland residents, according to Umbach.
“By better accommodating the demand for student housing, the hope is that these surrounding areas may continue to be a place for home ownership, so that families, University employees and others may be able to call Oakland home,” Umbach said.
The two-year construction schedule is slated to start in late 2026.
In compliance with Pittsburgh’s Inclusionary Zoning ordinances, 10% of the residential units for rent will be designated as affordable housing, according to Subtext’s project description. This will be equal to about 30 affordable units.
The site is also expected to have a two-level underground parking garage with 168 available spaces, as detailed in the project description.
Though details for the project are still being announced, Samuel and Martin have learned a lesson about Oakland housing.
“There was not really any way for us to know this was going to happen,” Martin said. “We really want to take the time to make sure we know who we’re dealing with, as landlords, and just to prepare as much as possible — and hope this doesn’t happen again.”
