4C — January 25 - February 7, 2019 — Economic Development — M id A tlantic
Real Estate Journal
www.marejournal.com
E conomic D evelopment
Regional Industrial Development Corporation Transforming properties and communities in the Rust Belt
ommunities all over the country are dealing with the aftermath of the loss of heavy industry and the jobs that went with it. Huge buildings and campuses, built for companies that employed thousands of workers, now lay vacant, with a corresponding impact on tax revenues and all the local services those revenues provide. The challenges are complex. Everyone wants to get those properties back on the tax rolls but is that in and of itself enough? Purely market driven sales could accomplish that in C
many cases, with the result being a warehouse or storage facility that can function on the site as is, but will provide few jobs, low tax revenues and very little benefit to the community. And yet, finding a private sector developer to take over such a project is daunting, as they are bound to face millions in infrastructure costs and po- tential environmental issues, and significant financing is- sues before they even begin to reinvent and rebuild the prop- erty according to a new vision for occupants. In Southwestern Pennsylvania, that’s where Re-
gional Industrial Development Corporation (RIDC) comes in. RIDC has tackled some of the region’s most challenging projects, including transform- ing large vacant facilities into modern workplaces for the companies that create jobs and drive our future economy. This has been especially true for RIDC’s nurturing role in the burgeoning robotics industry, which has put the City of Pitts- burgh back on the map. Pittsburgh has become a global center of research and development in robotics, arti- ficial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, biotech and other technologies, and RIDC has played a key role in supporting the growth of many of these businesses – as it has contin- ued to provide homes for com- panies in Pittsburgh’s evolving manufacturing industry. Mill 19 Mill 19, a 265,000 s/f complex on the 178-acre Hazelwood Green site, once owned by J&L Steel Hazelwood Works and LTV Steel, is a case in point. The building was left to rust when the steel industry collapsed, but its bones – an underlying steel superstruc- ture – remain strong. With revival and reuse plans well underway, Mill 19 is being transformed into an engine of revitalization for the entire community. In 2018, we began construc- tion of our second building at Mill 19, a new 70,000 s/f workspace that will house a corporate R&D center for a global technology company. The three-story building will include offices, ground floor prototyping, lab, and workshop space. Mill 19’s first building, with some additional space in the second, will house Carnegie Mellon University’s Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute (ARM) and CMU's Manufacturing Futures Initia- tive (MFI). “Hazelwood Green is a liv- ing laboratory for the new economy, bridging the gap be- tween research and practice in today’s fast-changing, technol- ogy-driven marketplace,” said Farnam Jahanian, president of Carnegie Mellon University. With robotics and ad- vanced manufacturing rap- idly becoming economic pil- lars of the region, RIDC’s connectivity to so many of continued on page 10C
Mill 19
Sterling Business & Technology Park We are the Northeast in Northeastern Pennsylvania and the perfect location for your new manufacturing, technology, back office, e-commerce, assembly or distribution building. Land only or build to suit.
• Lot 3 Land Development Plans Approved • Lot 3 is 5.81 Acres, Only 2 Hours to NYC • Site Development Work is in Progress • KOZ, KIZ & WCEDF Program Approved • Sewer & Water on Site, Still Build in 2018 • Redundant Power from two Substations • NPDES Permits In Place for all 23 Lots 40,0000 SF Building Site
20 Easton Turnpike • Lake Ariel, PA 18436 646-236-3400 SterlingBusinessPark.com troy@SterlingBusinessPark.com
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