A decades-vacant industrial site in Lackawanna, NY may finally get a new life thanks to a recent investment by upstate’s Erie County.
Local media outlet WGRZ Channel 2 has reported that the former Bethlehem Steel site, which closed in the 1980s, has been tapped for the first phase of a major overhaul. The county has purchased 150 acres for $5.5 million, and hopes the site will eventually be reborn as “a high-tech, green industrial business park.”
According to the Buffalo News, this is not the first time this blighted industrial site has been reviewed for redevelopment, but Lackawanna Mayor Geoffrey M. Szymanski told the news outlet that there have been many occasions when the current land owner and other local leaders have made promises and pledges that went nowhere. Meanwhile, the site has become increasingly blighted.
While the county still needs to undertake some massive infrastructure projects – like moving old rail lines, building a new public road, and installing utilities – the site is thought to have major promise based on its proximity to transportation (rail, water and highway) and to the Canadian border.
According to Buffalo News, fifty years ago, the manufacturing giant Bethlehem produced millions of tons of steel a year and employed 22,000 workers.