State grant to fund business park development

$ 1 million project will include green space

A 160- acre development in Harrison received a $ 1 million grant from the state and will break ground later this year.

The Harrison Point development will be a multiuse business park, according to developers R& Z Harrison Properties LP. It will host a restaurant, a hotel, a senior living community, a grocery store and a gas station with a convenience store.

“The vision for this is a broad use project that delivers options to the residents of Allegheny Valley,” said Brian Clark, project manager for R& Z Harrison Properties.

Most of the development will be donated back to the community for a 100- acre township park.

“As part of this project, we are only developing the tops of the hills, and we are going to preserve and protect the deep valley forest and slopes in Little Bull Creek” by donating the land to the township over time, Mr. Clark said.

Bill Heasley, president of the Harrison board of commissioners, said the land was once home to baseball fields where he played as a kid.“I’m looking forward to that park being rejuvenated,” said Mr. Heasley. “We’ll have a bike trail and hiking trail down there.”

“We view [ the park] as an amenity to what we’re doing, but it also means a lot to the residents of Harrison Township and the region,” Mr. Clark said.

Mr. Clark said Harrison Point will help the community by giving a new location option to companies that want to come into the region, as well as bringing in new restaurants.

“Any money that would be generated would certainly help the tax base in the community,” Mr. Heasley said.

The site sits adjacent to Silver Lake Park along Route 28 and is expected to bring in 698 new drivers in the morning and 812 in the evening, according to a transportation impact study approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in April 2017.

“It’s all going to be in a good

location, right off the expressway,” Mr. Heasley said.

“We’re going to get a lot more people maybe coming into the township and seeing what the township is about,” he said. He added that he hopes the presence of Allegheny Technology Inc. in the community will bring company representatives to the future hotel.

The Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, or RACP, is a grant program administered by the state every year for the “acquisition and construction of regional economic, cultural, civic, recreational and historical improvement projects,” according to the Pennsylvania budget office website.

This year, the RACP gave out 38 grants in Allegheny County. Overall, the program dolled out more than 200 grants at a total of $ 274,440,878. The average grant was $ 1,282,434.

It’s not the first time the Harrison Point project received state funding. Last year, the state’s Commonwealth Financing Authority gave $ 425,000 to the Harrison Township Water Authority to construct a waterline to serve Harrison Point and Silver Lake Park.

The $ 1 million from the state will go toward constructing storm water facilities as a part of the project’s “site preparation package,” Mr. Clark said. The rest of the preparation package includes a million cubic yards of earth; constructing a 580foot concrete arch culvert extension; installing gas, electric, water and sewer management facilities; installing fiber optic telecom facilities; relocating electric transmission lines; and improving the surrounding highway.

“We have extraordinary costs because of the unique topography of the location,” Mr. Clark said. “So every little bit helps.”