A setback to overcome
Finding a middle ground in McKees Rocks
McKees Rocks civic leaders, who have worked for years to bring their town back to life, have had the rug pulled out from under them.
A developer has backed away from a plan 15 years in the making to convert 52 acres of a railroad brownfield into a light-industrial site that would employ more than 1,000 people. Instead, Trinity Development envisions a gasoline station and potentially other uses to service CSX’s intermodal facility.
Because 52 acres is a significant plot, the parties should be able to find common ground, with some of the land allocated to light-industrial uses as planned and some dedicated to capturing the synergy offered by the CSX facility.
Compromise is not a Pollyannalike proposal. The politics favor it. McKees Rocks Council is divided, with half of the members wanting to stick to the original plan. A dispute could engender ill will, hinder development or threaten financing.
McKees Rocks doesn’t need any of that. The community has done much in recent years to recover from the bad hand the collapse of the steelbased economy dealt it.
With the help of the aggressive McKees Rocks Community Development Corp. and the Focus on Renewal network of social service programs, the community has tried to forge better opportunities for the high number of people in the community with mental illness. Civic leaders have worked to rebuild the business district one business at a time and started a program for nurturing entrepreneurs.
It’s easy to see how Trinity Development’snew vision for the 52 acres of the old Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad site is a big step backward; plans for two light-industrial buildings were the linchpin of redevelopment plans for years. Civic leaders and officials who remain committed to the first concept don’t want the planning to go to waste. But they don’t have to if theparties can broker a deal.
Because so many have based their hopes on the light-industrial concept, Trinity Development has ample incentive to leave some of the site for that use. It needs to be a good neighbor, thankful for the support it has received so far.
At the same time, the company’s Craig Rippole has a point: The CSX hub brought new opportunities, and it makes sense to leverage them if they seem readily attainable while the original plan remains a grand idea that might come to fruition down the line.