Fifth & Craig: The RAND Building
A cornerstone Oakland asset bringing together world-leading research and institutional partners at one of Pittsburgh’s most influential intersections.
Completed in 2006, Fifth & Craig: The RAND Building is a six-story, 107,000 square foot, Class-A office building in the heart of Oakland—Pittsburgh’s hub for research, medicine, higher education, and technology. The building features a modern glass-and-concrete exterior, high-speed elevators, underground parking with EV charging, and full fiber-optic connectivity. RAND Corporation anchors the property, with Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute completing a premier tenant roster. With its location at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Craig Street, the building offers unmatched access to Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), and the region’s most concentrated innovation ecosystem.
Impact in Numbers
At-a-glance metrics for this property, including total square feet, year completed, and Elmhurst’s ownership period.
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Year Completed
Hold Period
Equity Multiple
Long-Term Value Driven by High-Caliber Tenancy and Institutional Demand
Elmhurst’s acquisition of Fifth & Craig: The RAND Building—its second transaction with PenTrust—was grounded in a clear thesis: Oakland’s demand for institutional-grade office space serving national research organizations, university affiliates, and mission-critical enterprises would remain resilient across market cycles. With RAND and CMU SEI in place, the building represents a stable, diversified income profile tied to tenants whose work is deeply embedded in Pittsburgh’s academic and technological core.
The property’s performance also demonstrates the advantage of investing in supply-constrained submarkets. Oakland has limited opportunities for new ground-up commercial development, making existing high-quality buildings particularly valuable to tenants requiring proximity to laboratories, classrooms, research computing facilities, and hospital systems. Fifth & Craig’s near 100% occupancy and strong renewal momentum reflect Elmhurst’s disciplined stewardship, its strong operating relationships in Oakland, and its ongoing commitment to maintaining an asset aligned with the needs of world-class institutions.
Strengthening Oakland Through Institutional Collaboration
The success of Fifth & Craig: The RAND Building is rooted in long-term relationships with the University of Pittsburgh—its landowner and a central steward of Oakland’s development—and PenTrust, which selected Elmhurst as a trusted partner for strategic investment in the city’s academic and innovation districts. These partnerships created the stability required to assemble the site, secure anchor tenancy, and design a building that balances institutional priorities with the operational needs of high-performance research tenants.
Today, Fifth & Craig contributes meaningfully to Oakland’s research corridor. RAND’s presence amplifies the neighborhood’s global impact across policy, defense, and economic research. At the same time, CMU’s Software Engineering Institute reinforces the site’s role in advancing cybersecurity, artificial intelligence engineering, and national innovation infrastructure. Together, the tenants at Fifth & Craig signify a rare blending of public, private, and academic missions—each benefiting from the building’s location, amenities, and long-term operational reliability.
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