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Opponents clash over Deer Creek Crossing plan
Wednesday, November 14, 2001 By Susan Jacobs, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
To some, the proposed Deer Creek Crossing shopping center would be the death knell for the Allegheny Valley, permanently altering valuable land and draining towns of small businesses. To others, it would be a panacea, saving the region by bringing in tax money, road improvements and new jobs.
Everyone agrees that the impact of the development -- proposed for a hillside in Harmar -- would be profound and long lasting.
"Our valley is dying without development," said Donald Muse, chairman of the Harmar supervisors, who favors building the strip mall. He said the shopping center is expected to bring about 3,000 jobs to the area.
The northeastern corner of Allegheny County is one of the few sections of the county that does not have a large shopping mall, but it is not a region suffering for places to shop. Residents can reach several malls within a 30-minute drive in any direction.
But Texas developer Orix-Woodmont wants to build a $169 million power strip development at Routes 910 and 28 that it promises will bring millions of dollars in tax revenue to the township and Allegheny Valley School District, as well as convenient shopping at big-box retailers such as Target, Home Depot and Best Buy.
The site plan proposes nearly 40 buildings, including retail stores, restaurants and two hotels.
"People are going to be shocked at how big it is," said Robert Silber, an organizer with Clean Water Action. "It's not going to look anything like it does now. The whole hillside is going to get dumped into the valley."
Clean Water Action and several other environmental and fishing groups oppose the development because of the impact it would have on Deer Creek, flowing through the property, and surrounding wetlands.
The plan is awaiting approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Local officials, however, welcome the development as a way of saving the valley from further economic decline. Retail stores in Harrison and New Kensington are struggling, while smaller businesses in Springdale borough and Cheswick, including a grocery store, are quietly closing.
Helpful or harmful?
Even opponents of the shopping center agree that some sort of development on at least part of the 243 acres owned by Pittsburgh businessman W. Duff McCrady would benefit the region.
"One can't help but wonder that a development that mixes commercial with residential [uses] could make a very attractive development site," said Court Gould, director of Sustainable Pittsburgh, a group that focuses on environmentally and socially responsible development.
He said light manufacturing or high-tech businesses also could locate there, but Harmar officials argue that a large, unified development is needed to guarantee that road improvements will be made to handle increased traffic.
Ronald Wasilak, superintendent of the Allegheny Valley School District, said that tax revenue from the development would help ease the burden on residents and insulate against property tax increases. Revenue from the project could make up a significant portion of the district's $14.5 million annual budget.
The developer plans to build on 107 acres. If all that space is built out, probably 20 years from now, the district could receive up to $3.5 million in annual taxes, Wasilak said. In the first years of its operation, however, 60 percent of revenue from the development would be diverted to paying off bonds, leaving $1 million per year for the district.
Harmar also would benefit from additional tax dollars but, in turn, would have to pay for road maintenance around the development and for a police presence at the site. Wasilak said the school district has promised to help Harmar cover the cost of any additional expenses created by the development.
Orix-Woodmont has promised to pay for major improvements to Route 910, making the steep, sharply curved road safer to travel, including creating an interchange with Route 28. The development is planned to be built around some of the steepest curves on Route 910, now divided by concrete barriers.
Straightening the road would involve leveling part of the hillside and filling in the flood plain below it.
Proponents of the plan tout the increased safety of the improved road, which is handling more vehicles as Indiana Township, just north of Harmar, has grown and as industrial developments in Harmar have moved in or expanded.
Traffic is one of the biggest concerns about the development. If the mall is built, it is likely to bring customers from communities on the other side of the Allegheny River, including New Kensington, Oakmont and Lower Burrell. Bridges that give those communities access to the Allegheny Valley Expressway are already overburdened.
PennDOT has completed a study of the river valley and has determined that something must be done to relieve traffic, whether or not the development is built.
Jeff Thompson, a civil engineer with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, said the eventual bridge improvements would consider the impact of additional traffic from the proposed Harmar development as well as a proposed shopping center in Frazer, which has been planned for years but has not been built.
Local business owners worry how Deer Creek Crossing could affect them. Even without additional competition, stores are struggling, and critics of the project say the valley doesn't have enough people to support new stores.
One casualty of the poor economy has been the Cheswick Foodland, which announced this week that it will close as soon as its stock is liquidated. Owner Richard Tkac said his business has been struggling for a long time and hasn't been helped by a bad economy that has only worsened since Sept. 11.
On Monday, he slashed his prices to sell off the rest of his stock.
His store, on Freeport Road, is part of an older shopping area that includes a hardware store, beauty salon and a strip of small specialty businesses. An Eckerd drugstore opened up the block. It also sells bread and milk, cutting into Tkac's profits.
"There's no business here," Tkac said. "They're just not buying."
Giant Eagle draws customers from Harmar, Indiana Township and other towns on the hillside along Route 910. If Deer Creek Crossing is built, Giant Eagle will relocate to the new development, leaving no large grocery stores in the valley.
Bill Lane, who runs a hardware store in the same complex as the Foodland, said he isn't too concerned about the development or the impact it would have on his business, which has already had to compete with Home Depot stores in other parts of the county.
"The only thing that bothers me is that the government is giving them money," Lane said. Deer Creek Crossing would benefit from tax-increment financing to make improvements to Route 910.
The financing programs were formed to encourage development in what are considered blighted areas, usually in or close to urban areas that are difficult to develop. In this case, McCrady's land was declared blighted because it was deemed as not meeting its economic potential and not adequately served by roads. Silber of Clean Water Action called the use of the financing a "horrendous misapplication of the law and tax dollars."
Lane said the development could affect other stores in the valley.
"They're stealing sales from people here that are already established," he said. "They're not creating new sales."
Proponents of the project say it would bring more business to the entire valley, but some local business owners worry that customers who now shop in Cheswick and Springdale Borough on Freeport Road would instead go up the hill to the development.
Bill DePew isn't worried about his Springdale Borough music and video businesses surviving.
"We're established. We have a very strong clientele," he said. "I think the area needs to develop."
Both the Allegheny Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Allegheny Valley Council of Governments support the development.
Laurie Singer, president of the chamber, said she didn't expect the development to negatively affect existing businesses.
"I think that there's a market for that as well as the existing businesses," she said. "I think that a destination mall would be a great asset."
Tom Benecki of the COG agreed. "A lot of folks who know how businesses operate don't think it will be predatory," he said.
Wetland worries
The strongest objections to the development are environmental ones. The proposal includes filling in nearly six acres of wetlands and building two bridges and a concrete culvert over Deer Creek.
The plan must be approved by the DEP and the Army Corps of Engineers before any development can begin. If the permits are granted, Harmar also would have to approve the plans. The public comment period on Orix-Woodmont's application ends Dec. 15.
An earlier plan by the developer had been approved by Harmar but was rejected by the DEP and the Army Corps last year because it involved rerouting the creek and filling in part of the existing stream bed.
But environmentalists said it's not just the stream that is a concern. The flood plain that surrounds the stream also is important.
"The point is you're basically blocking the stream into a box," said Jody Rosenberg, a lawyer for PennFuture, an environmental group. She said the stream needs to be able overflow into surrounding wetlands.
The revised Orix-Woodmont plan would build up the sides of the creek, stopping the creek from expanding in wet weather.
Frank Sparrow, president of Tri-County Trout, said the high walls would raise the temperature of the creek and create a storm drain effect, making the waters move faster through the area and washing away the stream bed.
"It's exactly the kind of activity that numerous studies have shown adversely affects waters," said Ed Perry, an aquatic biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Orix-Woodmont would be required to create artificial wetlands to replace those that would be eliminated.
"Wetlands will be filled in, but new ones will be created," said Terry Bossert, attorney for Orix-Woodmont. "I think we're going to make the stream better than it is."
But Perry said replacement wetlands won't help the flood plain.
"There's no amount of mitigation that can lessen this impact," he said.
Orix-Woodmont also has promised to preserve nearly four acres of wetlands on the development site. The development would be built around the wetlands. A similar arrangement was made for an indoor soccer complex in Harmar, where the asphalt parking lot is dotted with clusters of vegetated wetlands.
While such actions meet the requirements of state and federal laws, Perry said, they do little to preserve the effectiveness of wetlands.
"From an ecological standpoint, they might as well fill it," he said.
To ease residents' concerns about environmental degradation, Orix-Woodmont and McCrady have promised to donate 92 acres north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike to be used as a public nature reserve, where some of the replacement wetlands would be located.
But sportsmen say the reserve would be far from a nature lover's paradise.
"No one wants to fish with the back of Home Depot in the background," Sparrow said.
While parts of Deer Creek are considered high quality fishing areas, those who favor the development have argued that the section of stream that flows through the proposed shopping center is already degraded and seldom used for fishing.
Anthony Bledsoe, a biologist at the University of Pittsburgh, issued a letter last year to the Army Corps of Engineers, saying the wetlands were significantly degraded because of logging and traffic from all-terrain vehicles.
Perry said the current condition of the wetlands should not be a justification for destroying them.
"There's no question the wetlands on this site have been impacted," Perry said. "That is no reason to write off a quality site. Most of Pennsylvania has been cut two or three times."
Before environmental regulations, Deer Creek flowed bright orange because of acid mine drainage. Some parts of its tributary, Little Deer Creek, are still orange, but the presence of trout and other fish throughout the stream indicate that it is much healthier than it once was.
Rosenberg said the law is on the side of the environmentalists in this matter. "We believe proper review by DEP will result in a denial of this permit," she said.
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