Westinghouse Electric Co. may have just subleased more than half of its headquarters at 1000 Westinghouse Drive in Cranberry Township, but that doesn't necessarily mean the company isn't growing again and in need of more space itself in the region.
Instead of basic office space, however, sources who chose to remain anonymous indicate the nuclear power company has been scouting the market for a tech-flex kind of facility, needing a mix of office and manufacturing space in one location.
The sources further indicated Westinghouse has been in talks with the development team for 51 Bridge Street, a renovation of a 1902-era mill property in Etna, to lease the building, which totals more than 88,000 square feet on three levels.
Westinghouse didn't immediately respond to several attempts to reach the company.
The redevelopment of 51 Bridge Street is a project of New York-based AM Group, which celebrated kicking off construction on the building in July 2021 after it had performed basic asbestos remediation and prep work.
Thomas Sabol, a partner with the AM Group, indicated in an emailed statement that the company has no final lease agreement yet to announce at 51 Bridge Street. He did not confirm nor deny whether the organization is in talks with Westinghouse.
"We have been working diligently to find the right tenant, or tenants, for the 51 Bridge Street property, where we have invested much time and capital. Because we are excited to bring business to Etna and the surrounding areas, we will share any details about tenants and further developments as they are confirmed," he said. "As you may know, tenant agreements for properties require continuous confidential discussions as well as paperwork. Therefore, we would want to make sure any future tenants are verbally and legally confirmed before we release any information to assure that the future tenant or tenants would be a part of any announcements."
The possibility of Westinghouse pursuing such a space comes after St. Louis-based Emerson, a publicly traded software and technology firm with a major presence in the region due to a business unit it bought from Westinghouse, recently announced it was subleasing 142,000 square feet at 1000 Westinghouse Drive.
It was a sublease announcement in which Westinghouse opted to decrease the size of its office presence at 1000 Westinghouse Drive by a total of 415,000 square feet for what was originally a global headquarters campus at which the nuclear power company once occupied well over 800,000 square feet.
Westinghouse, a storied name in Pittsburgh business history that has long since turned over owners and management, has been through its share of ups and downs in recent years but appears to be on a healthy business trajectory at the moment.
The company became a part of Toshiba in 2006 and in 2017 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with $9 billion in losses connected with the construction of AP1000 modular reactors at two plants in Georgia and South Carolina. The reactors in South Carolina were never built and there were delays in construction and cost overruns with the two AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia.
But things have begun to turn up for Westinghouse in recent years. It was acquired in 2018 by Brookfield Business Partners and has seen success in selling reactors not only in China, but also in Ukraine, Poland and elsewhere in Europe as the nuclear industry has seen an upturn as the world turns to lower-carbon energy sources. A Vogtle plant's AP1000 reactor began nuclear fission earlier this year and is expected to be operational and generating electricity this spring.
The company also has grown over the past two years with its acquisition of the Rolls-Royce nuclear division along with some recent engineering firm buys. Westinghouse its set to be acquired itself in 2023 by Brookfield Renewable Partners and Cameco.
Landing such a company as a tenant would be a great win for AM Group and Etna for a building that juts right up next to the river town's Main Street business district, one that's drawn such small businesses as the Rear End Gastropub & Garage, Porky's Bar and Grill and Kiya Tomlin Work/Shop, among others.
AM Group hosted a collection of the small businesses of Etna at its groundbreaking event in the summer of 2021.
While a total budget for the redevelopment is unknown, the 51 Bridge Street project generated public financial support in the form of a $1.5 million Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant allocated by the previous administration of Gov. Tom Wolf.
Don Smith, president of the Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania, who is well-familiar with the project and the building after his organization once considered it, expects such a deal would be excellent news all around if it comes to fruition.
He noted it would be "great for Etna to have some job uses to help support all the other businesses that have located there" as well as for the developer of the property.
"They did a nice job in a time that was economically tough right after they started," he said.
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