Gov. Tom Wolf Wednesday announced Commonwealth Cornerstone Group has completed a $15 million New Markets Tax Credit financing transaction that will support the adaptive reuse and redevelopment of “Mill 19,” a riverfront brownfield site that is part of the planned Hazelwood Green project in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood community.

Mill 19 will be redeveloped by Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania into a light-industrial, research and development, and flexible office space attractive to technology companies.

The redevelopment project will consist of three phases that will restore the 264,000-square-foot former steel mill building. It features a "building within a building" concept by including a new, high-tech, three-story building under the old mill’s existing steel skeleton.

The cutting-edge facility will house research, development and office space for the non-profit Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute, a $250-million public-private collaborative led by Carnegie Mellon University, and for CMU's Manufacturing Futures Initiative.

Additional flex space will be made available to the university’s partner organizations. Work at the site is expected to produce significant job opportunities.

“This project has great potential for revitalizing an unused brownfield site and bringing jobs and additional high-tech employers to Hazelwood,” said Gov. Wolf. “We’re excited about the business synergies that could be created here to benefit the local community and the entire region.”

A special feature of this project is its goal of meeting LEED gold standards for the building’s core and shell construction. The building will implement a large 2 megawatt rooftop solar array, as well as reduce indoor water usage. The end result should be a site that boasts net-zero energy usage and is environmentally sustainable.

“Hazelwood was hurt when the steel mill there closed in the 1990s,” said Brian A. Hudson Sr., CCG chairman and executive director of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA). “This project holds tremendous promise for not only bringing back jobs but attracting good-paying technology positions. We also think this project could be a regional model for smart energy usage.”

CCG was created in 2004 by PHFA to serve as a nonprofit community development entity.

"The Regional Industrial Development Corporation’s mission is to support economic development in communities around the region by breathing new life into facilities that housed the great companies of Pittsburgh's past," said Donald Smith, president of RIDC. “This tax credit program is crucially important in enabling us to apply state-of-the-art design and development strategies to bring this property back to life.”

This project is expected to create 132 temporary construction jobs. The developer already is working the Trade Institute and the A. Philip Institute to place low-income residents in apprenticeship and construction jobs. Additionally, the project will create 116 full-time permanent jobs and retain 63 full-time positions.

Carnegie Mellon University and its partners are working on a workforce development center in connection with this project that would help train low- and moderate-income residents with entry level technology skills that could be used by employers at the site.

In addition to New Markets Tax Credits from Commonwealth Cornerstone Group, the developer also received tax credits from Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, Telesis, and PNC Bank.

For more information on the project, visit the Hazelwood Green website.

NewsClip:

Hazelwood Green, Fmr Steel Mill Site Transformation Gets Boost

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[Posted: Dec. 27, 2017]

1/1/2018