AK Steel Plant 2 redevelopment plan wins award
The county’s reuse plan for the AK Steel Plant 2 site and the Bantam building has won an award.
The Butler Bantam Redevelopment Master Plan, which was completed this year, but has not been publicized, won a Placemaking Award for Excellence in the Visionary Place category from the Pittsburgh chapter of the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit global organization that supports redevelopment projects.
A representative from the institute presented the award during Wednesday’s county commissioners’ meeting to Mark Gordon, chief of economic development and planning.
A brief presentation about the plan included conceptual renderings of the plant site and Bantam building redeveloped into a multimodal area with housing and businesses, as well as a gathering space along the Connoquenessing Creek.
Included in the plan is the planned realignment of the Armco Drive, Hansen Avenue and Whitestown Road intersection in Butler Township that links the city and the township.
Leslie Osche, commissioners’ chairman, said the county would have to seek millions of dollars to carry out the plan, but it has the potential spur the rebirth of Lyndora.
She said Lyndora was a vibrant community where immigrants moved for jobs at Pullman Standard and Armco and was the “heart of the Black community.”
“This to me is that sort of rebirth or could be that rebirth of what once was that vibrant area and an opportunity to bring people back there to support potential industry in that area and also to bring back a vibrant community particularly built on the heritage and ethnic heritage that was there,” Osche said.
After the meeting, Gordon said the study was completed within the last nine months and was paid for with federal money allocated to the county’s Brownfield Program for redevelopment of former industrial sites.
He said five business are interested in opening facilities at the AK Steel Plant #2 site.
The redevelopment plan was created by Moss Architects of Pittsburgh, which the commissioners hired in January 2022 for $50,000 to develop a reuse plan for the former plant site and neighboring area.
