Lawrence County, PA Focuses on Site Readiness

A leading cause of manufacturing relocation away from developed areas to newly developing ones is the lack of competitive sites to support existing industry expansion. We find this issue time and time again in our work across the country. We are currently working with an "in-town" industrial development group, called WIRE-Net, on Cleveland's Westside, which is working to address this very issue.

Creating new real estate capacity is not a simple decision for areas suffering from at least a couple generations of economic decline. For one, these areas lack clean developable land to convert into industrial sites. Brownfields, as they contaminated and under-utilized land and buildings, are a way of life for most urban areas and many rural areas.

Here is an example of how one development is working to tackle this problem. Lawrence County, Pennsylvania is working to reverse its cycle of decline by creating Millennium Park, a proposed 1,200-acre high technology industrial park conveniently located between Pennsylvania Route 60 and the winding Shenango Creek in the center of Lawrence County near New Castle. Currently, there are 158 acres designated as a Keystone Opportunity Expansion Zone within the park and an additional 200 acres to be designated later this year. KOEZ zones provide a variety of economic development incentives to businesses, including special tax abatements.

Millennium Park is one of several key projects identified by Gov. Edward Rendell as a top priority of the state's economic development plan to have several large commerce park sites within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania prepared to meet the demands of our new global economy. The state has committed $15 million to the project, which will be matched by local sources including $7.2 million that has already been dedicated to the project by five of Lawrence County's municipalities. The County of Lawrence has pledged an additional $3.5 million.

According to the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance (PRA), creating this type of industrial capacity is imperative if areas like Lawrence County are going to grow in the future. PRA works closely with Lawrence County development officials. The PRA approach to regional economic development is a sensible one. But as Ronnie Bryant, PRA's President, recently told me during a visit to Cleveland, "regionalism is something that most places talk about, but few actually do it successfully. You have to work your way into a regional approach to economic development." This is sound advice for areas hoping to advance regionalism for economic development.

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