Millie’s Homemade Ice Cream is breaking ground in Homestead this week to start the buildout of a 6,000 square-foot space that will allow the company to produce more ice cream: It’s the anchor tenant for ACTION-Housing’s redevelopment of the former Homestead Bakery from 1902, which will include 26 apartments and three additional commercial spaces.
The groundbreaking for the $7.5 million project will be at 10 a.m. Friday at 235 Seventh Ave., with Sen. Jay Costa, Rep. Paul Costa, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, and Homestead Mayor Betty Esper attending.
When the ACTION-Housing development is completed in 2019, it will be added to the National Register of Historic Places. ACTION-Housing has picked up where former Steelers quarterback Charlie Batch left off, having initiated the project back in 2007.
Two additional commercial spaces are still available to rent, in spaces that range from 500 and 2,000 square feet. Most of the apartments at Homestead Bakery Lofts will be affordable for those who earn 80 percent of area median income or less.
Millie’s Ice Cream Works will have a glass wall facing the street that will allow passers-by to see the production in action, which, “offers another step forward in providing transparency in manufacturing,” says Chad Townsend, co-owner of Millie’s along with his wife, Lauren Townsend.
The company prides itself on using all-natural ingredients to make flavors like cantaloupe sorbet, Vietnamese coffee and Chad’s vanilla with real vanilla beans. The beans have become more expensive of late as a result of stunted production the last couple years along with depleted reserves.
The move from the company’s current production facility in Homewood’s XFactory to Seventh Avenue will allow Millie’s to continue to pasteurize their ice cream, making them one of the only ice cream makers in the area to do their own locally.
“It gives us complete control over the ingredients in the base and the ability to create different bases for different flavors,” Mr. Townsend says.
It will also keep the company on track to open five to seven more Millie’s locations in the region over the next five years. The flagship location opened at 232 S. Highland Ave. in Shadyside in 2014, with a second location debuting in Market Square Downtown. The company is on track to open another location in the North Hills this year.
The ACTION-Housing development is supported by a combination of historic tax credits, financing, developer funds and public support including a Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project grant from the state, a Community Infrastructure and Tourism Fund grant and a loan from the Allegheny County Department of Economic Development. First National Bank is an investor and a lender; there’s pending support from Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency’s Community Revitalization Fund tax credit program.
Homestead is seeing a bit of development outside of this project with the recent opening of Enix Brewing Company, a Mediterranean brewery/restaurant with a bowling alley. The project, in the former Levine Bros. Hardware building at 337 E. Eighth Ave., comes from brothers Victor and David Rodriquez, with the latter having recently opened two brewpubs in Madrid, Spain.
The brothers are connected to the family business, developer A.M. Rodriguez Associates, Inc., that’s building One Homestead. The project includes three loft apartments and 18 townhouse units in four buildings along Amity Street between Ninth and 11th avenues, as well as a four-story, 30-unit building on the 100-block of Eighth Avenue with commercial space on the ground floor.
Over in West Homestead, Rogan Brewing Co. is on track to open soon at 214 W. 8th Ave.
Melissa McCart: mmccart@post-gazette.com
First Published: October 8, 2018, 12:00 p.m.