More than 20 years after the last steel was poured at the former Carrie Furnace site in Rankin and Swissvale, Allegheny County finally is poised to move ahead with redeveloping nearly 160 acres of riverfront property.

Gov. Ed Rendell announced yesterday the site has been chosen for special Brownfield Action Team assistance, which will help development officials cut through red tape for approvals and move the Monongahela River site to the top of the list for financial help from the state.

		Graphic: Development site

Dennis Davin, the county's economic development director, said the county expects to begin site improvements and infrastructure upgrades this summer and be ready for development proposals early next year.

"We honestly think that next year we will begin to see something happening there," Mr. Davin said. "We should be ready to go out for requests for proposals by the end of the year."

Mr. Davin said being part of the Brownfield Action program should give the county priority for any environmental approvals and financing it needs at the site. Consultants are in the process of identifying water, sewer, utility and road improvements needed at the site.

The county is in the process of finishing environmental work at the site, which was much less extensive than expected. The county had projected $3 million to $5 million in environmental cleanup, but the work will cost less than $1 million.

L. Robert Kimball and Associates also is updating a 2001 report on the types of development that should be considered for the site.

"This is the last large, riverfront piece of property available in Allegheny County," Mr. Davin said. "It's really a nice, flat piece of land that will be good for housing, office space, light industry. We think it has similar qualities to Washington's Landing [a successful mixed-use development on an island in the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh].

"We're going to solve the access to the site and have it ready to go."

Mr. Davin stressed that -- especially with the popular Waterfront retail complex across the river from Carrie Furnace -- there will be no retail component at the new site. "We have enough retail," he said.

The county will take two major steps to make it easier to get to the site. One involves reopening to vehicular traffic a hot metal bridge between The Waterfront and Carrie Furnace that had been used by rail cars to move materials between steel mills on each side of the river.

The other involves building a ramp from the Rankin Bridge to the site, similar to the ramp installed on the Homestead Grays bridge to provide access to The Waterfront site in Munhall, Homestead and West Homestead. The county is working with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to coordinate the project with the Mon-Fayette Expressway, which would come through the area.

The expressway project may be a decade away or more, but Mr. Davin said the Rankin Bridge rehabilitation and ramp should happen in the next few years and could receive financial help from the Turnpike Commission.

Improvements also will begin this summer on South Braddock Avenue, which links the site with the Parkway East.

The county bought 137 acres at the site in August 2005 for $5.75 million from Park Corp., a Cleveland developer that bought the former Homestead Works and Carrie Furnace from USX in the early 1980s.

About 20 acres where the remaining Carrie Furnace and other steel buildings are located have been set aside while the Steel Heritage Corp. tries to raise upwards of $80 million for a steel history museum. If it moves ahead, that project would work well with other development at the site, Mr. Davin said.

While the county has been working to prepare the riverfront site, it also has been making improvements in the surrounding communities of Braddock, Rankin and Swissvale to improve housing, raze dilapidated buildings and improve roads.

Braddock and Rankin are among the poorest communities in the county and have been in the state program for financially distressed municipalities for more than 10 years. The county hopes that improving the communities will make the riverfront land more attractive to developers.

Development can't come soon enough for Braddock Councilman Jesse Brown, who served from 1982-92 and again beginning in 2000. Redeveloping Carrie Furnace was an issue during his first term.

"We really thought nothing would happen there," Mr. Brown said. "There's been a lot of movement recently. Now I think the Carrie Furnace site is going to be a lift to the whole area."