Take the Mall at Robinson and Ross Park Mall, combine them and toss in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. That's about 2.8 million square feet of floor space.

That is what Steve Thomas, of Chapman Properties, Leetsdale, is proposing adjacent to an interchange on the soon-to-be-open Findlay Connector. Chapman has 300 acres of former strip mine land on what is now Bald Knob Road in Findlay, and is advertising a mixed-use development with about 2 million square feet of light industrial and distribution space and 800,000 square feet of offices, retail shops and hotel rooms.

"I think it's a hotel site at some point, given the proximity to the airport," Mr. Thomas said, proximity, in this case, meaning a three-minute drive on a brand-new highway.

And this is only the beginning. Chapman bought 300 acres from Imperial Land Co., sitting right at the interchange. Imperial Land still owns 900 acres of adjoining property and 1,800 more behind it.

"It's a new frontier, if you will, for Allegheny County," Imperial Land President Gerald Bunda said. "There are a lot of synergies there."

This has, of course, been the talk for 20 years as political leaders worked to get the Findlay Connector built. Among other benefits, it would open for development huge tracts of otherwise essentially worthless land, providing one thing the region sorely lacks: large-scale building sites near Pittsburgh International Airport.

The six-mile toll road, Pennsylvania Turnpike 576, is expected to open in October, linking Route 60 at the airport with Route 22 in Washington County. It is the first link in the Southern Beltway, a long-planned and much-hoped-for interstate looping south of Pittsburgh, connecting the airport with Monroeville.

Imperial Land has been part of the process all along.

The successor to a company that mined much of the land in the southwestern corner of Findlay, Imperial held thousands of acres that were scarred from mining, had no access and no utilities and which were largely under flight paths from the airport, making them unsuited to residential use. So it donated 185 acres to make way for the connector, and got an interchange at Bald Knob Road to solve the access problem.

State grants and loans worth $7.1 million are helping get sewer and water lines built. Mr. Bunda said their completion was imminent. Natural gas lines are also in the works; he expects them to be finished by late winter or early spring.

The Chapman center plans show that these plans are coming to fruition, yielding the kind of large-scale development leaders have been hoping for.

"We haven't had pad-ready sites which are served by utilities" at the scale that is now available, Findlay Manager Gary Klingman said. "You're not going to find 300 acres. That's what's missing."

"We see a demand for Class A distribution space," Mr. Thomas said, spaces combining offices, warehousing, multiple loading docks and flex space. "That's under-served in this market."

The commerce center is designed to put that kind of use to the rear of the property, with the office, retail and hotel uses at the front and substantial landscaping to blend it all. Much of it, especially the office, retail and hotel space, will be done on a build-to-serve basis, to meet demand as it arises, Mr. Thomas said.

He said that, while he expects to see some high-tech and research-oriented companies in the park, his vision is not quite TechWorld, a flashy proposal put out for the area a few years ago.

"TechWorld was someone's vision, I'm not sure whose," he said. Given demand and airport access, he sees his park and surrounding property booming with distribution business, with the other uses mostly serving that business.

"With several thousand acres here, there should be a critical mass" to support service-oriented retail shops, restaurants and gas station/convenience stores, he said.

Other benefits of the site, he said, are visibility and topography. "The site is Ohio-flat," he said. "Most projects around here involve an incredible amount of cutting and filling."

Something he's less thrilled about is the name of the road he's building on. "Some coal miner had a sense of humor," he said with a chuckle, noting that his company is talking with Findlay officials about a new name. "We're all in agreement that it ain't gonna be Bald Knob."

That's only one of many issues facing the township, and a small one at that.

"This is definitely a change, hopefully a change for the good," Mr. Klingman said. But it's also a change Findlay has long been preparing for, with zoning based on a 1991 comprehensive plan that was updated over the winter.

"We want to develop the township so that residential communities are not adversely impacted," he said. That includes making the southwest corner largely commercial and industrial, uses that will benefit from the fact that the land was mined and will not be adversely impacted by jetliners overhead.

The township also is looking for commercial and industrial development at the newly finished interchange of Route 60 at Moon-Clinton Road, where the Airport Authority is already developing Clinton Commerce Park. That interchange, part of the Findlay Connector project, opened July 21. The Route 30 corridor and the Flaugherty Run/Route 60 interchange are targeted for mixed-use growth, with residential areas tucked into quieter spots.

Meanwhile, there is still some coal being mined, and mine sites being reclaimed. "We're working from the old world to the new world," Mr. Klingman said.

Ultimately, the plans call for a Findlay with a population of about 12,500, village centers in Clinton and Imperial and retail areas along major roads and highway interchanges, all driven by a burgeoning industrial and distribution sector feeding off the airport.

With what's already starting to happen, it all seems possible.

"But you have to know where you're going," Mr. Klingman said.