Alex Simakas owns a large piece of property in a dense city neighborhood that is seeing some of Pittsburgh’s fastest rising housing values.

It’s a combination of factors leading Simakas and his partners, working as Fort Willow Developers, to begin planning to redevelop what is now an old 120,000-square-foot industrial building outfitted with 10 cranes and some accompanying open land into a new master planned project in the heart of Lawrenceville.