What’s currently an old, vacant building with broken windows near the New Kensington Bridge will eventually be a renovated, 100,000-square-foot space to accommodate a large industrial tenant, RIDC officials say.
“It’s a great building for a lot of the demand we’re seeing from industrial users,” said Don Smith, RIDC president. “We’re very optimistic about bringing another manufacturer to the site.”
RIDC was awarded just under $7 million from the state Tuesday to rehabilitate the buildings closest to the bridge at the New Kensington Advanced Manufacturing Park.
Renovating that space will open almost 130,000 square feet for a new industrial business at the 70-acre business park, according to the state.
“This will allow us to prepare the ground to accommodate one of the larger manufacturing facilities,” Smith said.
Originally, the site was home to Alcoa’s earliest production and research facilities. The complex closed in 1971 before becoming Schreiber Industrial Park.
New Kensington’s redevelopment authority bought it in 2018. It was acquired by RIDC and the Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corp. in October 2023.
Re:Build Manufacturing will anchor the park.
That’s expected to create 300 new jobs that will span five existing buildings.
The park also houses Affival, a steel fabricator with 70 employees, and Filterbuy, an air filter company with about 120 employees.
Smith said the $7 million grant award will cover most of the exterior renovations.
Smith said RIDC has heard from prospective industrial tenants interested in renting the refurbished space.
RIDC intends to level the site to improve its rail and river access for potential tenants. Having a larger industrial pad with potential rail and river access is hard to come by, he said.
The New Kensington project is one of 11 projects and $64 million statewide as part of the new “PA SITES” grant awards from the state Department of Community and Economic Development.
“We’ve heard loud and clear that Pennsylvania needs to develop more sites we can use to sell our commonwealth to companies that want to grow and thrive there,” Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a statement. “These sites are key to growing our economy, creating more jobs and thriving communities and helping Pennsylvania compete — and win.”
The funding comes at a time when six buildings at the park, also along the Allegheny River, are being demolished.
“The site has a lot of structures that are no longer viable,” Smith said. “What the funding will enable us to do is to prep some of the site so that it will be prepared to break ground on new facilities there.”