The McCune Foundation — one of the original investors in Almono, a sprawling riverfront development on a former steel making site in Hazelwood — has sold its share in the project as part of its long-term plan to finish its grantmaking by 2029.

McCune sold its stake to the Richard King Mellon Foundation which, along with McCune, the Benedum Foundation and the Heinz Endowments in 2002, created a limited partnership to buy the 178-acre site from LTV Steel for $10 million.

The nonprofit Regional Industrial Development Corp. is the managing partner of the project.

Officials of the McCune and R.K. Mellon foundations did not respond to inquiries. The other foundations involved in the Almono limited partnership also declined comment.

“I don’t expect it to change anything,” Don Smith, RIDC’s president, said about the McCune Foundation’s sale. “It’s business as usual.”

According to R.K. Mellon Foundation’s website, last year it paid $4 million to acquire a 20 percent stake in the Almono Limited Partnership.

When the four foundations bought the site 14 years ago, the Heinz Endowments put in the largest amount — $4.5 million for a 45 percent share — and the other foundations invested through grants.

McCune stated that it sold its share to the R.K. Mellon Foundation in its 2015 annual report, though it did not disclose terms of the transaction.

It’s no surprise that McCune divested its holdings.

In his will establishing the foundation in 1979, the late Charles McCune, former president and chairman of Pittsburgh’s Union National Bank, stipulated that all assets be distributed by 2029, or 50 years after his death.

“This was a good time for the foundation to simplify its obligations, and we are grateful to see that the work of the remaining [Almono] partners has accelerated,” the foundation said in its 2015 annual report.

The foundation reported assets with a fair market value of $360.9 million in its 2014 federal tax filing. Last year, the foundation approved grants totaling $28.2 million to nonprofits engaged in education, health and human services, culture and economic development.

In its 2015 annual report, it called the sale of its Almono share, “another step in preparation for its wind down.”

McCune said the original limited partnership’s “long view helped it survive the 2008 downturn, and has the site positioned to be developed properly, as exemplified by the new road and infrastructure work launched in the fall of 2015.”

Plans for the $1 billion redevelopment of the brownfield parcel that straddles the Monongahela River call for creating an urban village that will include 2 million square feet of office and research and development space; more than 1,000 units of housing; retail shops; parks; and trails. All elements of the project will feature environmental sustainability and blend in with the existing Hazelwood neighborhood.

A master plan is scheduled to be released later this spring or summer, Mr. Smith said. Progress on an access road to the site is ahead of schedule thanks to the mild winter, he said.

Almono got a high-profile boost in February when San Francisco-based ride-sharing company Uber confirmed it will build a test site for self-driving cars as part of the development.

“The Uber deal provides some momentum,” Mr. Smith said. “We’re getting more inquiries now that that is out there.”

Almono — the name is a combination of the first few letters of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers — was the spot where Jones & Laughlin Steel opened its Eliza furnaces in 1884. A coke plant was added in 1906 and the operations employed thousands of workers until J&L’s eventual owner, LTV Corp., closed the steel furnaces in 1981 and shuttered the coke plant in 1997.

The consortium of foundations that bought the property from bankrupt LTV saw an opportunity to create a riverfront center for living and working that would blend with the existing Hazelwood neighborhood.

Despite delays in getting development started, “I feel as if Almono is still one of the great opportunities for Pittsburgh in the 21st century,” said Max King, president and chief executive of the Pittsburgh Foundation. Mr. King headed the Heinz Endowments when it invested in Almono.

He credited the endowments — specifically board members Teresa Heinz Kerry and her son, Andre Heinz — with having a strong urban design sensibility that should drive Almono to become a showcase for “sustainable, environmentally-aware and inclusive development.”

In addition to its investment grant to Almono last year, the R.K. Mellon Foundation made a $1.1 million grant to the partnership for operations and a grant of $797,000 for capital projects for the site.

Joyce Gannon: jgannon@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1580.

First Published: April 19, 2016, 4:00 a.m.