O’Hara land long owned by the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh could be used in future years to house water storage tanks.
The Hampton Shaler Water Authority wants to buy 2 acres at Kirkwood Drive and Cascades Way. The property is 76 acres total, largely used for the St. Mary Roman Catholic Cemetery.
If approved, land will be subdivided from a parcel owned by the diocese for more than 100 years. Allegheny County has assessed the entire property at $4.7 million. It is unclear what the sale price of the subdivision will be.
Jennifer Antkowiak, media spokeswoman for the diocese, did not return TribLive requests for comment.
The water authority is trying to get ahead of the game by expanding capacity before construction of a massive mixed-use development in Sharpsburg, tentatively called Allegheny Shores.
“This expansion is directly because of the new development,” said April Winklmann, authority executive director.
“They tell us it’s going to double the amount of Sharpsburg’s use.”
Allegheny Shores is planned for a 1.5-mile stretch of land along the Allegheny River. Developers want to transform a 52-acre brownfield into housing, commercial and entertainment uses.
The project is expected to increase the number of water customers from 1,600 to 2,600, Winklmann said. Water from the tanks would also serve portions of O’Hara.
Hampton Shaler Water Authority supplies more than 1.3 billion gallons of drinking water each year to more than 25,000 properties in West Deer, Indiana Township, O’Hara, Sharpsburg, Etna, Shaler and more. It owns 11 water storage tanks with a capacity of more than 10 million gallons.
In 2017, the authority took ownership and maintenance of Sharpsburg’s water distribution system.
The deal for the storage tanks is partly contingent on variances and a conditional use approval from O’Hara, Winklmann said. A meeting before the township’s zoning board June 1 was continued to July 6 to gather more information.
The tanks along Kirkwood Drive, Winklmann said, would serve everyday use, but also could provide water in emergencies.
“If you need to clean one or have to make a repair, you still have the other one in service,” she said.
An existing storage tank in Sharpsburg would no longer be needed.
Further testing is also necessary to determine if the land can accommodate the tanks, Winklmann said.
“We’re in the planning stages,” she said. “We did the initial drilling, but it is preliminary. We need it to be at a particular elevation. We need to make sure the land will work.
“Even if we get the variances and the conditional use, it needs to go to the next phase of design and engineering to make sure that we will be able to build.”