Jan 21, 2015 4 min read

The Redevelopment Authority of Washington County is hoping to breathe new life into the former Brockway Glass plant property in Canton Township.

During Wednesday’s hearings, Susan Morgan, RAWC’s brownfields and municipal planning manager, told the Local Share Account panel the site at 55 Hickory St. “is a brownfield, it’s contaminated and it’s underutilized.”

Morgan said the authority is seeking $372,000 in LSA funds to put toward cleaning up contamination at the site and creating an access road for truck traffic. Total cost of the project is $855,000, of which RACW is committing $140,000 for remediation costs. It also estimates $43,000 for the cost of the land that property owner Daart Co. will donate for the access road. The remaining $672,000 is for the road’s construction.

While there are several companies with offices on the site, she noted Daart was unable to lease the property as it exists and also tried to sell it to developers without success.

The redevelopment authority was one of 21 nonprofit entities to give brief presentations Wednesday in hopes of getting some of the $6.5 million in funds made possible by gambling proceeds received from The Meadows Casino.

By the end of the two sessions, the panel heard requests from 67 different groups, representing projects ranging from a variety of water and sewer upgrades to funds needed to repair a historic covered bridge.

Canton Township supervisors, who attended the Brockway presentation with Morgan, said that while they are not providing any matching funding for the project, they would be responsible for maintaining the access road when it is completed. They noted the road is part of a broader plan by the township to improve access to other industrial sites near the Jessop Place exit of Interstate 70, such as Allegheny Ludlum’s specialty metals plant on Green Street. They added a hotel is under construction just off the I-70 exit.

Morgan said that when the work is completed, the property would be prepared for sale to a developer.

The panel also heard from Gary Sweat, solicitor for North Franklin Township, which is requesting $610,000 for a bridge replacement near the Studio 7 hair salon that carries traffic from Franklin Farms Road into Washington Crown Center and the Washington Square commercial development above the mall.

Sweat explained the structure is a concrete beam box bridge that PennDOT considers obsolete. Sweat said at some point the highway department will either ask that the bridge be closed or replaced.

He said the township, its recreation board and Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, which currently owns the mall, support the bridge’s replacement, and have committed matching money for the $872,000 project.

When LSA board members noted that PREIT has said that it intends to sell the mall, Sweat said he had the owner’s assurance that it will provide funds for the project.

When asked what would happen if any of the matching money would be withdrawn, Sweat replied, “I think everybody’s going to have to dig deeper.”

A bridge from an earlier era was the subject of a request from David Scofield, director of Meadowcroft Village.

Scofield asked for $151,000 for the 144-year-old Pine Bank Bridge, which serves as the only pedestrian access to Meadowcroft’s 19th century village. He said the village has matching funding from the Washington County Tourism Promotion fund and state funding for the repairs.

The panel also heard eight different requests for funds that would be used toward a number of water and sewer projects, including extending sewer lines to 336 buildings and houses in the village of Lawrence in Cecil Township; water line replacement in Vestaburg; a project on McClane Farms Road in Chartiers Township and Washington East Washington Joint Authority’s plans to expand sewerage along Park Avenue and Weirich Avenue.