Industrial development agencies finalize venture to redevelop New Kensington park

Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corp. and the Regional Industrial Development Corp. finalized a joint venture to redevelop the New Kensington Advanced Manufacturing Park.

Westmoreland County commissioners and IDC directors Sean Kertes, Doug Chew and Gina Cerilli Thrasher approved the partnership with RIDC, which has agreed to the terms.

“We’re extremely excited by this opportunity to invest in the Alle-Kiski Valley with a project that will transform more than a million square feet of this key industrial site so it can continue to attract quality businesses and jobs for decades to come,” Kertes said. “This property has a manufacturing legacy of more than 130 years, and we couldn’t ask for a better partner to modernize it than RIDC.”

The joint venture is in the due-diligence period of a deal that would transfer the property in New Kensington and Arnold from the Redevelopment Authority of the City of New Kensington, which bought the former Schreiber Industrial Park in 2018.

“The city and the Redevelopment Authority of New Kensington deserve a lot of credit for their leadership and for taking ownership of this significant property at a time when its future was uncertain,” Cerilli Thrasher said. “Their foresight made it possible for us to make improvements that will benefit the local economy for decades to come.”

The transfer is expected to be completed this year, said Steve Alschuler, director of communications for RIDC.

When the deal is complete, the joint venture will assume about $10.7 million in park-related debt held by the redevelopment authority.

“This is great news for the City of Arnold and its citizens,” Arnold Mayor Joe Bia II said. “With the county taking ownership, this will provide us with a much broader outreach and a much broader pool of funding to continue development of our industrial area.”

New Kensington Mayor Tom Guzzo said the two agencies have resources that will take the park “to the next level.”

“The Redevelopment Authority has done an excellent job of attracting new businesses and making major renovations to the industrial park, putting it in a great position for WCIDC and RIDC to come in and use their resources to continue attracting companies and make improvements to the park,” Guzzo said.

The nearly 70-acre property, the initial manufacturing site for Alcoa, has 20 industrial buildings and about 1.1 million square feet of leasable space. Buildings date from 1923 to 1978.

Each industrial development corporation is contributing $3 million to the newly formed NKAMP LLC, which they say will transform the property into a modern manufacturing park.

The initiative includes $25 million in public, foundation and nonprofit funding and a $50 million investment by Re:Build Manufacturing, which announced May 1 that it will establish a 175,000-square-foot manufacturing operation in the park.

Re:Build has started its first round of hiring while construction on its site is underway, said Mary Osso, director of marketing. The company anticipates hiring more than 300 employees at the location over the next three years.

“Positions for manufacturing technicians and manufacturing team leads in precision machining and composite fabrication are being filled,” she said. “Re:Build’s plan is to build and train over the coming months and begin production later in the year.”

The industrial park is home to seven companies occupying about 495,000 square feet. With Re:Build included, the occupancy rate is nearly 60%.

Partnerships are crucial to the success of such projects, said RIDC President Donald F. Smith Jr.

“Westmoreland County and the IDC have shown a great commitment to economic growth, as have the cities of New Kensington and Arnold,” Smith said. “With funding from the commonwealth and the Richard King Mellon Foundation, support from many community stakeholders and the presence of Re:Build Manufacturing on the property, this campus can become a center of high-quality jobs once again.”

Redeveloping the entire park could take up to 10 years, Chew said.

Other large industrial parks RIDC has revitalized include the former Sony and Volkswagen plant, now RIDC Westmoreland Innovation Park, and the former Westinghouse plant in Turtle Creek, now RIDC’s Keystone Commons.

This is the second collaboration between WCIDC and RIDC. WCIDC is a marketing partner for RIDC Westmoreland Innovation Center, a 2.8-million-square-foot facility in East Huntingdon.