South College students, sewer upgrades coming to Cranberry
CRANBERRY TWP — College students will soon take classes and learn in part of the former Westinghouse complex in Cranberry Township, after supervisors approved a conditional use resolution Thursday night to allow South College to move classrooms into its administrative offices.
South College, a private, for-profit college with its main campus in Knoxville, Tenn., maintains a satellite campus at 3000 Westinghouse Drive, Suite 200 in Cranberry.
“They moved their administrative offices in last fall, and they had told us that they were going to do the education part later,” said Ron Henshaw, Cranberry’s director of planning and development services. “It just happens to be a use, non-public education, that is a conditional use, which means it needs a special approval.”
A public hearing was held for the conditional use at the previous Cranberry meeting last week.
Henshaw said the township anticipates approximately 100 students will take classes in the center, on the second floor of the building.
“That repopulation of the Westinghouse complex is the great story for us, let alone that we’re getting South College and all these great things are happening,” Henshaw said. “We love to see those spaces in the Westinghouse buildings get filled up with great tenants like this.”
According to the South College website, the satellite campus will offer associate programs in surgical technology, pre-nursing health science, radiography and diagnostic medical sonography.
The first steps in the project of restoring and upgrading the Franklin Acres sewer pump station moved forward at the Thursday meeting.
Supervisors approved awarding the design contract for engineering services for the lift station upgrade to Herbert, Rowland & Grubic Inc. for a total of $129,300.
This step, Henshaw explained, is to determine the specifics of what the upgrade will entail.
“They will study it, figure out what it needs, and then you’ll see a bill later for what these actual upgrades are,” Henshaw said.
At last week’s meeting, the township ended a previous plan between Breakneck Creek Regional Authority and Cranberry that would have seen a gravity flow connection constructed between the two systems and an elimination of the aging Franklin Acres station.
Supervisors cited the ongoing evaluation by and potential sale of the Breakneck authority to Pennsylvania American Water Company as a reason for concern.
The previous design accumulated engineering expenses of around $100,000, township manager Dan Santoro said at the July 28 meeting.
As a whole, however, upgrading the pump station instead of going around it is anticipated to cost approximately $1.2 million in all, which is a similar price tag to the original plan, Santoro said.
Supervisors also swore in a new officer to join the ranks of Cranberry Township Volunteer Fire Company’s Fire Police.
Officer Mike Hoover swore his oath of office at the meeting Thursday night. Hoover has lived in the township for the past four years.
Fire police officers are fire company members who manage traffic and security around emergency scenes. Their job also sometimes entails managing traffic at community events.
