The transformation continues: Shuttered plant awaits rebirth

A big chunk of the transformer plant will soon be ready for new tenants.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- Businessman Jim Winner expects to have 300,000 square feet of industrial space at the former Westinghouse Electric Corp. plant on Sharpsville Avenue ready for lease in about three months.
Westinghouse shut down its transformer manufacturing operation here in 1985, and much of the plant has sat mothballed since then.
Portions of it have been sold off. Winner bought the last remaining chunk, about 1 million square feet of industrial and office space, in December 1998.
He's redeveloping the site as Winner Development LLC and originally envisioned a $77 million project that would include an expansion of his Winner Steel Services plant located at the southern end of the old Westinghouse operation.
He continues to seek a $7 million state grant to help finance it and said a new application for the funds is to be filed this week.
The size of the project, dubbed Winner Industrial Park, has been reduced to $49 million and that will still include the expansion of Winner Steel, he added.
A new 150,000-square-foot building that will house a third line at Winner Steel, a galvanizing operation, should be completed in 30 days and the third line will be operational by the end of this year, Winner said.
The expansion is expected to boost the company payroll from 225 to about 350 employees, he said.
Environmental cleanup
Meanwhile, environmental cleanup in the remaining 880,000 square feet of industrial space is nearly complete.
Winner said all the walls and ceilings of the nine manufacturing bays in the building have been cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) -- chemicals used in transformer manufacturing until it was banned by the federal government in 1977 as a cancer-causing agent -- and other contaminants, as has most of the floor.
About 300,000 square feet of floor space in the five easternmost bays, however, have still tested positive for contaminants and will have to be sealed before the federal Environmental Protection Agency will give its approval for their use as industrial space.
That job will take between 30 and 90 days, depending on which sealing method is used, Winner said.
It's four of those five bays that will be available for lease, he said, noting that the building's five western bays will be used by Winner Steel.
The company plans to install a slitter line in one of them and is already using four others for storage of steel coils. The EPA has given approval for that use, Winner said.
He has one good prospect looking at the site now, he said, noting it is a steel plate manufacturer looking at space here as well as at other sites in Pennsylvania and Alabama.
Word that the manufacturing space is nearly ready for occupancy is good news, said Mayor David O. Ryan.
"I hope he [Winner] has some people to come in and lease space for manufacturing jobs," he said.
Incubator is an option
Winner's announcement that the third Winner Steel line will be running by the end of the year with an increase in personnel is even better immediate economic news for the Shenango Valley, Ryan said.
In addition to the manufacturing bays, there are a total of another 120,000 square feet of space available on the four floors in what was called the "I" building when Westinghouse ran the place.
That area would be ideal as an incubator for small businesses looking for a place to start operations with little or no overhead costs, Winner said.
It would be preferable for a public entity to get involved in the creation of an incubator because it would likely have better success than a private company at securing grant money to put that project together, Winner added.
Winner Development is talking to three Israeli manufacturing companies that might be interested in locating in that building, he said.
Office building
The "I" building is connected to the 160,000-square-foot office building that also is being cleaned up now, Winner said.
He plans to lease space there as well, noting that he is working on getting a telephone call center as a tenant that could bring 300 jobs to the city.
The office building should be ready for occupancy this fall, he said.
Winner said he still believes the industrial park can create between 1,000 and 1,200 jobs.
He said he's spent about $9 million on environmental cleanup at the plant, including $2.75 million in state loans.
Westinghouse spent $12 million on similar work before it sold the facility, and its successors have spent about $3 million more so far.
That figure continues to increase as the EPA has directed that some off-site cleanup work be done as well, including dredging a portion of the nearby Shenango River. That work will cost about $6 million.
gwin@vindy.com