A New Kensington company didn’t want to look too far away for a new home where it could bring its operations together.
In addition to a proposal to build a storage yard and maintenance facility at 1450 Greensburg Road in Plum, once the location of Golf Oasis, Geo-Solutions also plans to buy a multistory office building next to the roughly 62-acre property and behind Plum School District’s bus garage.
Geo-Solutions, a specialty earthwork contractor, is currently located at 1250 Fifth Ave. in New Kensington and uses yard space on two nearby lots in the city.
“Generally speaking, we wanted to stay nearby,” said Dan Ruffing, a company vice president. “The location that we’re at currently in New Kensington is split up among multiple parcels. We wanted to get our facility operating on a single parcel and not using public roads to transport equipment.”
Geo-Solutions has contingent offers to buy the vacant 62-acre parcel and the roughly 8-acre parcel where the office building stands, Ruffing said.
If the company’s plan proceeds, the lots would be consolidated in the future, said John Frederick of Civil and Environmental Consultants, who represented Geo-Solutions during a March 3 public hearing before Plum Council concerning the storage yard and maintenance building.
The proposal will go to Plum’s planning commission for review March 17 before going back to council for approval, Borough Manager David Soboslay said.
About a fifth of the 62 acres is usable, Frederick said.
“The area is densely wooded and steeply sloped, which they have no plans for disrupting or removing any of the trees along the steeply sloped areas,” he said. “The development is confined to the lower space, which was once the golfing range and the putt-putt area.”
A number of homes are west of the property. The company would be several hundred feet away, and it would adhere to buffer yard requirements for outdoor storage, with dense foliage planted and a fence, Frederick said.
Several pockets of wetlands are on the property. Frederick said they would not be disrupted or impacted by the development.
“If you pass the facility, currently there’s a lot of overnight trucks that park there, a lot of construction debris that gets dropped off and left at that facility,” he said. “The aesthetics of a cleanup and a redevelopment of this parcel is definitely overdue.
“I think Geo-Solutions would be a complement to the borough as they move their facility to this location.”
No residents commented during the public hearing.