Gaining steam — old locomotive roundhouse could be next Hazelwood Green redevelopment
An old locomotive roundhouse dating back to the late 1800s could represent the next stage of development at the former LTV Coke Works in Hazelwood.
Almono LLC, the owner of the sprawling 178-acre site on the Monongahela River, is proposing to convert the structure for a business use, with a small addition to be built as part of the project.
It will brief Pittsburgh Planning Commission members on the proposal Tuesday.
The project would represent the second major undertaking at the site, now known as Hazelwood Green, following the redevelopment of Mill 19 by the Regional Industrial Development Corp.
According to planning commission documents, the addition would be built at the rear of the roundhouse to house “vertical circulation serving a new partial second floor within the existing building.”
Almono LLC — a partnership made up of The Heinz
Endowments, the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation — plans to reuse some of the roundhouse’s existing brick, concrete and steel as part of the redevelopment. The project also would include public open space and landscape improvements. There also would be eight outside and 10 inside bicycle parking spaces and three accessible parking spaces for vehicles.
Other amenities include a rain garden and outside seating areas. Almono LLC is seeking an environmentally friendly LEED Gold certification for the complex.
No other details were available Thursday.
The roundhouse project could signal a new phase of development at the site. Beyond the RIDC’s work at
Mill 19, a 265,000-square-foot complex built from the bones of an old coke works structure, there has not been much activity at Hazelwood Green.
Uber Technologies leases 50 acres for a test track for its self-driving cars. But that lease expires in 2023 and Uber does not intend to renew it.
At Mill 19, the first building erected by RIDC houses Carnegie Mellon University’s Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute and its Manufacturing Futures Initiative. Catalyst Connection also has moved into the building.
This spring, autonomous vehicle startup Aptiv will be moving into a second building, about 70,000 square feet in size, within the Mill 19 complex. A third building is being designed, but construction probably won’t start until RIDC has a signed tenant.
The Almono partnership recently hired U3 Advisors, a consultant based in New York and Philadelphia, to advise it “on matters relating to Hazelwood Green site management, tenanting, and sitewide development strategies.”
U3 Advisors will take over from the Remake Group, which took charge of the overall development in 2016 from RIDC.