Developers are harkened for major revitalization project in Pittsburgh

Last month, the Planning Commission for the city of Pittsburgh approved a revised Preliminary Land Development Plan for Hazelwood Green, a 178-acre riverfront site—and the last big developable contiguous land mass in this metro—that was once where LTV Steel and Jones & Laughlin Steel milled steel and coke.

The site’s owners—a partnership of Heinz Endowments; and the Richard King Mellon, Benedum, and McCune Foundations, which acquired this property in 2002 for $10 million—on October 1 issued through its Almono LLC a Request For Qualifications (RFQ) to developers for the first 27-acre phase of Hazelwood Green. Developers have until November 19 to respond.

The larger redevelopment, which could take two decades to complete, envisions a world-class model for sustainable development, with a targeted total density of 8 million sf of mixed-use space for offices, R&D, light manufacturing, housing, retail, and 30 acres of public open spaces, all supported by a multimodal transportation system. Hazelwood Green's developers are targeting LEED for Neighborhood Development plan certification, Pittsburgh p4 Performance Measures, and the International Living Future Institute's Living Community Challenge.

The Remake Group, a sustainable development and design consultant, is the project’s manager.

The 27 acres covered in the RFQ would surround Mill 19, a 190,000-sf former steel mill that’s undergoing an $80 million repurposing and expansion to 264,000 sf. MSR Design is the design architect and Renaissance 3 Architects the associate architect on the Mill 19 reconstruction; Atelier Ten, Bala Consulting Engineers, and Lennon Smith Souleret Engineering the engineers; and Ten x Ten the landscape architect.

The Building Team peeled off the mill’s roof and will attach a canopy for a 2-MW solar array. Mill 19’s industrial skeleton is being retained around a new steel-and-glass building nestled within the old mill with three floors for office, research and light manufacturing.

The 90,000-sf Phase A of Mill 19's redevelopment is under construction, and its first tenants—Carnegie Mellon University's Manufacturing Futures Initiative and the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute—have agreed to lease 58,000 sf of that space. (Turner Construction is the GC on this building.) 

The first new space is expected to be finished by next Spring. The 70,000-sf Phase B (whose GC is Jendoco Construction) should be completed by next Summer or early Fall 2019, says Tim White, senior vice president of development for Mill 19’s owner/developer, the Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania. He also confirms that RIDC will take office space within Mill 19.

Hazelwood Green’s infrastructure includes the recently completed 1.5-mile, $27 million Signature Boulevard, whose financing was abetted by a $9.5 million loan from the Power of 32, a coalition of 32 counties in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and Maryland.

Future redevelopment plans for Hazelwood Green call for plaza that would be twice the size of Pittsburgh’s Downtown Market Square, and would include retail and, possibly, high-density housing.