For decades, the emptiness of the shuttered Bethlehem Steel complex stood as a symbol of the Buffalo Niagara region's struggles.
Now, with a smattering of new developments – and more on the way – it's becoming a sign of revival.
This parcel map shows the layout of the Bethlehem Steel campus and plans for various parcels and infrastructure developments.
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Mark Poloncarz, the son and nephew of Bethlehem steelmakers, who grew up in the shadow of the plant, understands that symbolism. As Erie County executive, he's led the push to revive the 1,100-acre stretch of largely vacant and sometimes contaminated land along the shore of Lake Erie.
"It's kind of the fulfillment of the vision that, if we build it, they will come," the Lackawanna native said of private businesses. "And they have."
Over the past decade, Erie County and New York State have spent nearly $50 million to buy land, move rail lines and lay the groundwork for development. The county now owns almost a quarter of the Bethlehem Steel complex – mostly along Route 5 – and that land has been cleaned up and is ready for redevelopment.
The Erie County Industrial Development Agency is developing restored portions of the former Bethlehem Steel site into the Renaissance Commerce Park. The property in the foreground on either side of Smokes Creek is under contract for purchase by the agency.
It's worked. Since then, the private sector has invested more than twice that amount – topping $100 million – to help turn the complex into a hub for manufacturing and warehouses.
• Welded Tube of Canada built a $48 million facility on 45 acres of land in 2013;
• North American Salt used part of the deepwater slip to unload and bag salt from ships, starting in 2015;
• The Steel Sun project installed 13,000 solar panels on the site, also in 2015;
• TMP Technologies constructed a $22.7 million factory across from Welded Tube, to make the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser;
The Erie County Industrial Development Agency is developing restored portions of the former Bethlehem Steel site into the Renaissance Commerce Park. The buildings at left and center were recently purchased by Sucro Sourcing, which plans to repurpose them for their sugar operation.
• Sucro Sourcing of Miami invested $19 million to buy and refurbish several existing buildings into a new sugar refinery and storage operation; and
• Uniland Development Co. is building a 150,000-square-foot "spec" warehouse fronting Route 5, with plans for a second, 170,000-square-foot warehouse next door.
The Erie County Industrial Development Agency is developing restored portions of the former Bethlehem Steel site into the Renaissance Commerce Park. At center, Dona Street is the first new public street onto the property. At left is the new 290,000-square-foot TMP Technologies/Time Release Sciences manufacturing facility. At right is a spec building under construction by Uniland.
"This is huge for Lackawanna," said Mayor Annette Iafallo, whose father worked at Bethlehem Steel.
For most of the 20th century, the Bethlehem Steel site was the center of the Buffalo Niagara economy, employing 22,000 workers with good-paying jobs. But its demise left an enduring legacy, not only from the loss of jobs, but also from the miles-long, contaminated eyesore it left by the Lake Erie shoreline.
Many of the site's buildings were torn down a few years after the shutdown. Others remained, hollowed-out shells that are a stark reminder of what was. So did the slag piles and rubble.
Even with the recent activity, it has hundreds of acres that remain vacant. Some of it isn't suitable for large-scale development. Poloncarz pushed for Amazon to build the massive warehouse now going to the Town of Niagara on the Bethlehem Steel site, but the company ultimately rejected the site because of concerns about high construction costs and unknowns about hidden foundations that might be buried there.
So the recent flurry of activity has been a welcome sign of optimism.
It was a long time coming.
Ten years ago, Poloncarz announced a plan to clean up and restore the factory grounds that had earlier produced steel that drove Buffalo's growth. It was an ambitious plan, unveiled at a time when Buffalo's own economic revival was far from certain.
The county now owns more than 240 acres in the most visible and accessible portion of the site. It moved a railroad line that had split the property farther away from Route 5 to free space in front. It built a road into the heart of the property – the first of several that are planned. New water, sewer and power lines are being installed in the now-renamed Renaissance Commerce Park.
A rail line that was relocated to accommodate development on the former Bethlehem Steel site in Lackawanna.
"There's a lot of folks who thought it was ridiculous that we'd be putting any kind of money into the site," Poloncarz said.
The site has always had advantages, local officials said. Its Lake Erie location offers easy access to shipping through the Port of Buffalo's 28 terminals. It is near major highways. A rail line runs through it. The Canadian border is a 15-minute drive away.
"Those were all serious advantages to the property 100 years ago, and those remain serious advantages to the property right now," said Deputy County Executive Maria Whyte.
There are financial advantages, too. Brownfield tax credits can offset much of the costs to build there.
Development officials said they're trying to be picky about the type of business that comes into the complex, with an emphasis on light and advanced manufacturing and distribution. The focus is on companies that generate good-paying jobs – not selling the available land to the highest bidder.
"We want to see things happen on the site, but we're really focusing on what are the needs in the community," said John Cappellino, the CEO of the Erie County Industrial Development Agency, which has taken the lead in the redevelopment of the complex through an affiliate, the Industrial Land Development Corp.
Officials don't want cryptocurrency mining, data center or similar operations.
"There have been projects we’ve had to deny, because they’re not a good fit," Whyte said.
The Steel Winds wind farm and the Steel Sun solar farm on the former Bethlehem Steel site.
The revival of the Bethlehem Steel property has been a long time coming – ever since the plant that once employed 22,000 people closed in 1983.
Talk of redevelopment began as far back as 1987, but while many of the buildings are long gone, little happened aside from installation of windmills and solar panels.
Instead, the property has gone from one owner to another – International Steel Group, Mittal Steel, ArcelorMittal and now Ohio-based Cleveland-Cliffs, which owns it through Tecumseh Redevelopment.
The current effort has involved close collaboration between county departments, the ECIDA and ILDC, Tecumseh, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and the City of Lackawanna. Officials have been meeting every two weeks for the past two years, both to discuss broad strokes but even to iron out nitty-gritty details and questions that arose along the way.
The plan – and Lackawanna's zoning – called for light manufacturing or warehouse near Route 5, medium industrial behind it, and heavy manufacturing in the back, including some areas that are so contaminated they are unlikely to ever be reused. That land – too dirty to clean up – would be converted to recreational use, allowing the public access to parts of the property and lakefront that they haven't had in a century.
"The central guiding principle is definitely the redevelopment of the land such that it supports high-quality jobs for our community," Whyte said. "But the other guiding principle is to support access to the land and to the water, in a way that the city of Lackawanna has really never fully enjoyed."
Erie County has purchased another 80 acres of land along Route 5 on either side of Smokes Creek to bolster the size of its new Renaissance Commerce Park on the site of the former Bethlehem Steel plant.
The county in 2017 purchased 148 acres of cleaned land from Tecumseh for $6.7 million. It added another 10 acres shortly afterward, and last year it agreed to buy 80 more acres from Tecumseh.
Meanwhile – after an initial $20 million cleanup dredged Smokes Creek and remediated the tar pits – Tecumseh has committed to spending another $69 million over the next five to 10 years to clean up another 489 acres. That includes removing the top layer of soil and putting down a foot of clean fill material – or paved surface – across the entire surface.
The Erie County Industrial Development Agency is developing restored portions of the former Bethlehem Steel site into the Renaissance Commerce Park. The property in the foreground on either side of Smokes Creek is under contract for purchase by the agency.
More groundwork is coming to improve utility service, and new roads into the site are envisioned at Ridge Road, Odell Steet and Madison Avenue, possibly starting later this year or early next year. The county is also extending the Shoreline Trail through the site, along Smokes Creek and over to Woodlawn Beach State Park in Hamburg.
The efforts are paying dividends. TMP Technologies built and opened its 290,000-square-foot facility in front of Welded Tube, while Sucro Sourcing is 60% done with its $21 million refurbishment of several existing buildings to create two sugar warehouses, a processing refinery and a packaging plant. "In my wildest dreams, I never thought we’d find a reuse for those buildings. I figured eventually they’d have to come down," Poloncarz said.
Uniland is preparing to erect the warehouse on a 9.12-acre parcel of land that it acquired from an affiliate of the Erie County Industrial Development Agency.
Last year, the ILDC sold 9 acres of land at the northwest corner of Dona and Route 5 to Uniland for its first $17 million warehouse, and then sold the developer another 10 acres early this year for the second, $20 million facility.
Officials are now kicking off a second phase, seeking proposals from developers for two more parcels of vacant land, totaling 24 acres.
Lackawanna Mayor Annette Iafallo, left, and Maria Whyte, commissioner of the Erie County Department of Environment and Planning, talk during a tour of the area where the Erie County Industrial Development Agency is developing restored portions of the former Bethlehem Steel site into the Renaissance Commerce Park.
Meanwhile, on the other side
The northern end of the complex is less developed. About three-quarters of the 150 acres there is open for development. .
County officials said that's a good problem to have, especially at a time when warehouse space is in short supply and so is ready-to-build industrial land.
"To have tens of thousands of residents drive by this property every single day and finally see the redevelopment of it, it really does signify our renaissance," Whyte said. "It really is a good example of what the public sector can do to support private investment."
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It's the next phase of a larger infrastructure plan to create a series of roadways and provide access to all parcels within the 130-acre business park, and even deeper into the 1,200-acre industrial campus.
Uniland is proposing to construct a new single-story industrial building with 150,000 square feet of space at 3401 Military Road in the Town of Niagara.
By this time next year, Woodlawn Beach State Park will have new trees, shrubs and plants as part of a project to improve water quality in Lake Erie.
The two land parcels are located in a Qualified Opportunity Zone, and are also eligible for lucrative tax credits under the state Brownfield Cleanup Program.
Uniland plans to spend about $17 million on the first facility, which is expected to open in summer 2022 after work began last year. The foundations are being laid now. It will now invest another $20 million in the second project, which it committed to begin building within the next 18 months.
"I don't want to make it sound like there's one or two projects the county is going to be focused on, at this point, when I believe that's more of a regional decision, especially when you're talking about these larger, potentially billion-dollar projects," Poloncarz said.
County Executive Mark Poloncarz's budget allocates millions in new grants to support businesses and struggling families; earmarks millions more for major roads, buildings and parks projects; reinvests higher sales tax revenue; and creates more county jobs.
Flexlume Sign Co., a 114-year-old manufacturer and installer of facility signs, is planning to relocate its entire operation from its longtime home in Buffalo to a new 4-acre parcel in Lackawanna.
Lackawanna mayor Annette Iafallo called Sucro's investments "a significant step forward in our efforts to rebuild Lackawanna’s economy and increase local job opportunities."
State officials on Wednesday announced that they have finalized remediation plans for the 489 acres of contaminated land nearest to the shoreline of the lake.
Uniland Development Co. plans to build a 151,200-square-foot light industrial or storage facility at 8 Dona St., on a site along Route 5 in Lackawanna.
Amazon spent over a year studying the Lackawanna steel site. But days before an expected public announcement, Amazon gave up on Bethlehem Steel.
At first glance, it seems puzzling to build a modern factory on the former Bethlehem Steel site, even without a manufacturer lined up to move into it. After all, this is a region that is littered with closed-down factories. Over the last 20 years, two of every five factory jobs have disappeared as less skilled manufacturing has shifted to
The City of Lackawanna has added another business to its Gateway Trade Zone along the Lake Erie side of Route 5, with a regional distribution facility for cane sugar for a Florida-based company that is expected to create 21 jobs. Founded in 2014 and based in Coral Gables, Sucro Sourcing provides sugar for mills, processors, distributors and industrial customers.
The Erie County Industrial Development Agency is developing restored portions of the former Bethlehem Steel site into the Renaissance Commerce Park. The property in the foreground on either side of Smokes Creek is under contract for purchase by the agency.
This parcel map shows the layout of the Bethlehem Steel campus and plans for various parcels and infrastructure developments.
The Erie County Industrial Development Agency is developing restored portions of the former Bethlehem Steel site into the Renaissance Commerce Park. The buildings at left and center were recently purchased by Sucro Sourcing, which plans to repurpose them for their sugar operation.
The Erie County Industrial Development Agency is developing restored portions of the former Bethlehem Steel site into the Renaissance Commerce Park. At center, Dona Street is the first new public street onto the property. At left is the new 290,000-square-foot TMP Technologies/Time Release Sciences manufacturing facility. At right is a spec building under construction by Uniland.
The Erie County Industrial Development Agency is developing restored portions of the former Bethlehem Steel site into the Renaissance Commerce Park. The property in the foreground on either side of Smokes Creek is under contract for purchase by the agency.
A rail line that was relocated to accommodate development on the former Bethlehem Steel site in Lackawanna.
Lackawanna Mayor Annette Iafallo, left, and Maria Whyte, commissioner of the Erie County Department of Environment and Planning, talk during a tour of the area where the Erie County Industrial Development Agency is developing restored portions of the former Bethlehem Steel site into the Renaissance Commerce Park.
The Steel Winds wind farm and the Steel Sun solar farm on the former Bethlehem Steel site.
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