After years of a slow-moving environmental cleanup, Allegheny County officials say they are very close to putting the former Carrie Furnace site, one of the largest flat industrial sites in the Mon Valley, on the market for redevelopment.

The county has filed notice of its plan to build on parts of the floodplain of the 168-acre site, where workers once produced some 1,200 tons of iron per day for the former Homestead Works of U.S. Steel. The site sits on the Monongahela River bank in Rankin and Swissvale, opposite The Waterfront shopping and entertainment complex in Munhall and Homestead.

The public has a 45-day window -- or until the end of the year -- to view, analyze, comment on or object to the county's plan after notice of the development was advertised in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette among other places, county officials said.

Unlike the 430-acre Waterfront development, the county plans riverfront housing, light industrial manufacturing and office space, at the site.

The county, which is hoping to place the site on the market as early as mid-2010, is seeking $60 million in federal stimulus funds to help pay for a flyover ramp from the Rankin Bridge onto the site and to refurbish an old hot metal bridge that connects the site to Route 837, said Bob Hurley, deputy director of development and business for the county's Economic Development Department.

The bridge would be renovated and reopened to pedestrian and vehicular traffic, much like what happened with the Hot Metal Bridge that connects the SouthSide Works to Second Avenue in Hazelwood.

The federal funds also would help pay for a network of service roads that will cut across and encircle the property.

The county's remediation plan, which has so far been approved by the Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Environmental Protection, calls for filling the site with 500,000 cubic yards of dirt, thereby elevating the property by as much as seven feet to reduce flooding.

"This is an important stage of the environmental clearance process we need to redevelop this property," said Mr. Hurley, adding that the county also has received authorization from the state Department of Environmental Protection to start lining the property with 1,200 feet of a new storm sewer system.

Bound by the Monongahela, two CSX rail lines that run along its back side on River and North Braddocksfield avenues, Carrie Furnace was built in 1881 as part of the Homestead Works. It operated for 102 years before U.S. Steel closed all its operations at the site in 1983.

The site is mostly in Rankin and Swissvale, with a small part within the city of Pittsburgh.

The Park Corp., a Cleveland developer, acquired the former steel mill property on both sides of the river in 1988, but the site remained dormant until 2005. That's when Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato decided to buy the Carrie Furnace site for $5.75 million, saying that he saw in it the potential for a major income generator for communities like Rankin, Swissvale and other towns along the Monongahela.

And over the years, Mr. Hurley said, "we had to do a historic characterization of the land, lay out a plan of what we wanted to do and show how we could overcome the environmental concerns of rebuilding on the property."

As part of that process, the county discovered that it had to elevate much of the site above the established 100-year flood plain-- a measurement of whether an area can withstand the type of flood expected to occur once every hundred years.

The county envisions developing the site similar to the SouthSide Works, a former LTV mill site. That complex features the UPMC Sports Performance Complex and offices for the Steelers and the University of Pittsburgh football teams. The region's FBI headquarters is also on the campus, along with office buildings, residential units and 34 acres of retail developed by the Soffer Organization.

So far, the county has invested about $9 million at the Carrie Furnace site for remediation and securing clearances from the state Department of Environmental Protection, said Mr. Hurley.

The two blast furnaces still standing on the site -- Carrie 6 and Carrie 7 -- were built in 1907 and remained in operation until 1978, after which they became a post-industrial playground for graffiti artists.

The county's construction plan calls for the establishment of a steel heritage museum to showcase the existing furnaces on a 25-acre section that the federal government already has declared a historical site.

The details of the county's development proposal are available for public examination and copying upon request in the offices of the Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County, 425 Sixth Ave., Downtown, Suite 800, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays or by contacting Joseph Klak at 412-350-1072.

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