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For those looking to maximize the benefits of proximity to a major city while minimizing the hassles, living in Washington County is truly a ‘best of both worlds’ solution. With a continuous connection through the road systems to Downtown Pittsburgh, Washington County dwellers can be commuters, or they can pursue careers in areas like higher education or alternative energy and live in a small town with the charm of a Mark Twain novel. Either way, living in Washington offers big-city access with small town sensibilities. For those looking to maximize the benefits of proximity to a major city while minimizing the hassles, living in Washington County is truly a ‘best of both worlds’ solution. With a continuous connection through the road systems to Downtown Pittsburgh, Washington County dwellers can be commuters, or they can pursue careers in areas like higher education or alternative energy and live in a small town with the charm of a Mark Twain novel. Either way, living in Washington offers big-city access with small town sensibilities. The history of Washington County is very similar to that of Pittsburgh. The county is named, of course, for our first president, and the area’s association with George Washington dates back to his days as a British officer. In more modern eras, Washington County was tied to the industrial fortunes of the region, with its coalmines supplying the coke plants, and then the steel mills along the Monongahela River in the western part of the county. When the manufacturing base of the region went away, the economic fortunes of Washington County darkened for a while, and the face of the Mon Valley was altered permanently. But little by little, with both effective public The county’s location is one of principal assets. Crisscrossing the heart of the county are two interstate highways, I-79 and I-70, which connect the east coast to the west, and act as a gateway to the major southern cities. The county seat, affectionately known as Little Washington to many, is located at the intersection of the highways, giving residents convenient access to important regional towns and commercial centers, most of which lay close to the highways within an hour’s drive. Washington County residents are similar to the cross-section of the region, but there are some interesting differences. The most transient areas are, not surprisingly, the northern suburban areas, yet many of the denizens of the county’s small towns are people who have been living in those towns all their lives. Although many of Washington County’s ‘old-timers’ stayed in the area after the manufacturing base eroded in the 1980’s, less than 18% of the residents are over the age of 65. That’s a smaller percentage than the national average, and much smaller than the 22% of Washington’s residents who are under the age of 18. For a lot of Western Pennsylvanians, that age distribution is a surprise. But then so would be other demographic realities of Washington residents, who are generally better educated, and have a higher salary than the average in our region as a whole. With the newfound prosperity came some new hot areas for residential development. The northern part of the county, the Pittsburgh suburbs are among the highest volume municipalities in the region year in and year out. In the central part of the county, the city of Washington and the large open tracts of land provide a counterpoint to the suburban growth, offering historic homes and horse farms for those looking for an alternative. And throughout Washington County remains the slower, friendlier pace of its many small towns. In the final analysis, though, people are attracted to Washington County because they believe they are getting a great value. “Our office [in Washington] hasn’t suffered during the economic downturn because there are many communities that have more affordable homes,” says Northwood Realty’s Jean Watson. She also believes the relative safety of the investment seals the deal. “We have pockets of new construction where there are bigger neighborhoods of established homes. Because our water and sewer infrastructure is more limited, the pace of new construction is more conservative, and new construction home values have held strong.” Brian Homes is a second generation homebuilder in Bethel Park. Like most builders, Brian Homes focused its business on its own backyard in the early years, but has seen that backyard shift in recent years. “My father started the business in the 1950’s and the company built most of its homes in Bethel since the 1960’s, but that really changed in the past decade or so,” says vice president Brian Colella. “There has been so much growth in northern Washington County that we’ve had great success building in Peters and North Strabane.” Colella says that he currently has homes wrapping up or for sale in McClelland Farms in North Strabane Township, and in Meadowridge and McMurray Highlands in Peters Township. “Frankly, I’d like to find more lots to build on in Peters or North Strabane right now.” Living (And Having Fun) in Washington Where the action is, and has been for some time, is in the Peters Township to Canonsburg area. That area, which essentially lies on either side of I-79 just to the south of the Allegheny County line, is comprised of a handful of municipalities that offer both location and amenities to their residents. In addition to Peters Township, the community of North Strabane Township lies east of the interstate and as far south as the Meadowlands. West of the highway, Cecil Township takes in an area about as large as Peters and North Strabane combined, surrounding the northwest part of Canonsburg proper. Over the past two decades, housing developments have boomed in these municipalities. The area is convenient for jobs, whether you are commuting to Pittsburgh or working at Southpointe, and the school districts that coincide with the municipalities, Canon-McMillan and Peters Township, are among the top-rated schools in the region. Peters Township School District, in fact, was the only district in the top five in the region from outside Allegheny County.
Deklewa Home, which has been building patio homes and villas in the South Hills and Cranberry was attracted to Washington County because of the combination of assets in the northern suburbs. The company has begun construction of Brookview, a 20-lot neighborhood on Valleybrook Road in Peters Township. “It’s our first project in Washington County and we chose it because of location, location, location,” says company president John R. Deklewa. “It’s a stone’s throw from Upper St. Clair but you have great access to I-79, the shopping on Route 19, and Peters schools, but without the tax burden that you have in Allegheny County.” Move a little further south and you encounter a few more municipalities where the growth has been less frenetic, but where the lifestyle amenities have blossomed. These communities more or less lie parallel along I-70 to the east and west of the city of Washington. While there have been a few Heartland Homes communities in Nottingham and South Strabane Townships, the neighborhoods there have been built more by custom builders. The same is true in Chartiers Township, outside Houston PA, where builders A. J. Strimel and Shoben Homes have been active, and in North Franklin Township, just east of Washington PA, where builder Keith Homes has been the most prolific. Paul Scarmazzi, whose Hawthorne Partners and Epcon Builders have developed and built no-maintenance communities in South Strabane and Chartiers Township, has seen the transformation of this part of the county during his career. “When I started building I had to scratch my head and ask myself why I was building here instead of some hot area like Cranberry, that I wasn’t being provincial,” he says. “But I’ve come to realize that there are some important drivers here. The first is Southpointe. The second is that there is adequate infrastructure in good locations, not in the hinterlands somewhere. And third is that there are lifestyle attractions, like the Meadows and the shopping at the I-79 exits that are very appealing.” This band of territory has Earlier this year, the first casino in Western PA opened at the Meadows harness racing track, which is located on Race Track Road just off exit 41 of I-79. It opened to record crowds, and its 3,700 gaming machines have been going strong. The Meadows Racetrack is still one of the biggest attractions in the region, with over 200 race dates every year. Just across the boulevard from the Meadows is another recently opened facility for Washingtonians. On August 29, 2008 more than 200,000 shoppers attended the opening of the $90 million Tanger Outlet Center (it rhymes with hanger), a 77-store outlet mall located in South Strabane Township. Following on the heels of these two attractions have been three new hotels (another is underway), as well as several new restaurants. Another big attraction for the Washington area is its baseball team, the Washington Wildthings of the independent Frontier League. With its home ballpark, Consol Energy Field, located in North Franklin just off I-70 at Chestnut Street (exit 15), the Wildthings offer fans a big league baseball experience with the fun of a minor league atmosphere. Consol Energy Field offers lawn seating in addition to its grandstand, plus picnic and playground areas at field level for fans with families. Professional baseball isn’t Washington’s only cultural similarity to the big city to the north. Washington boasts its own Jazz Society, and is the home of the Washington Symphony Orchestra.Washington County is also about outdoors in a big way. There are over 6,000 acres of municipal and county parks, and two state parks, Mingo Creek and Cross Creek Park. One of the side benefits of this new housing construction has been the growth of the game of golf in Washington. The county is now home to seven private golf clubs and eleven public golf courses, offering almost 350 holes of golf in a wide variety of competitive layouts. For those looking for history, how about a ‘hotel’ that’s 16,000 years old. Sure, there are some great bed and breakfasts in Washington that go back to colonial days, but the Meadowcroft Rockshelter & Museum of Rural Life in Avella offers a glimpse of life at the oldest site of human habitation in North America. The site is believed to be a temporary shelter for hunters, and itinerants moving through prehistoric Western PA. Now part of the Heinz History Center, the Meadowcroft was given a major facelift in 2008. A permanent structure was built to enclose and protect the dig site, and educational and gift shop spaces were upgraded. East of Washington, along the National Pike (US Route 40) lay many landmarks and battlefield commemoratives dating back to the French and Indian, Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Several of these have been adapted to hotels, and all offer insight into the events that shaped our region’s, and therefore our nation’s history. Where the Jobs Are, Southpointe Like all economic success stories, the story of Washington County’s prosperity is centered on the transformation and expansion of its employment base. Its economic history mirrors that of the nation and region surrounding it. After the economic paradigm shift of the 1980’s, however, the civic and business leaders of Washington County played their part in creating a new economy for western PA, and in the process created thousands of jobs in In the early 1990’s steelmaker Millcraft Industries began making use of its unproductive properties in downtown Washington to build a new office building for speculative development. Millcraft vice-president Lucas Piatt explains that the move, while risky, was not out of character. “Our company has a history of taking calculated risks,” he says. “No one thought there was a good reason to build a high-rise office in downtown Washington, but my father knew the business community and believed there was enough demand for new space that it would The experience whetted Millcraft’s appetite for real estate development and opened the county’s eyes to By the early 1990’s, it was apparent that the economy of Western PA had shifted to one built on intellectual property rather than industrial capacity. Millcraft was able to secure the rights to the property south and west of the Western Center when the state began closing that facility. The resulting development became Southpointe, the first large-scale new office development in the region since the RIDC parks opened in the 1970’s. With a broad vision, Millcraft invested over $100 million in a mixed-use office and residential complex that attracted over 2,500 residents, hundreds of businesses, and over 6,000 new jobs by the time the project was fully completed in 2005. More than $500 million in private and public investment has been made in Southpointe, which is also the home of an 18-hole golf club, several hotels, restaurants and the practice facilities for the Stanley Cup champion In 2002 the state of PA released the remainder of the Western Center property for development of Southpointe II. The successful developer, Horizon Properties, wasted little time in capitalizing on the attractive location, building a speculative office, called 1000 Town Center Boulevard, in 2007. The project filled quickly, prompting the construction of 4000 Town Center Boulevard this past year. That building has already attracted over 100,000 square feet of tenants as it opened, leaving only 18,000 square feet available to lease. Between the construction of the two offices, Horizon scored an even bigger coup, securing the development of the new corporate headquarters of energy giant Consol Energy. Completed in late 2008, the Consol building is an award-winning design, and the 384,000 square foot headquarters (along with a 75,000 square foot building for subsidiary Fairmont Supply) has become a beacon for more jobs in the northern part of the county. Also the home of the headquarters of Metso Minerals, USG Insurance and a Homewood Suites hotel, Southpointe II now has over 7,000 employees at its park each day. The final piece of the puzzle in Southpointe II will be the lifestyle center known as the Southpointe Town Center. Plans call for 675,000 square feet of retail and entertainment, including a 14-screen Kerasotes Showplace Theater and a 187,000 square foot new ‘hybrid’ WalMart. While the global economic headaches have slowed demand for new retail development, Horizon has been able to continue planning and pre-leasing for the project, which it hopes to get under construction in 2010.“We see a lot of our buyers coming from Southpointe, especially the people relocating here to work in the oil and gas industry,” explains John R. Deklewa. Where the Jobs Are, I-70 Corridor Perhaps the best-kept secret in Washington County is the amazing turnaround of the California University of PA. Located in a small community along the Mon River, California University was caught in a downward spiral of declining enrollment as the industrial economy of the valley declined. In 1992, however, the university hired Angelo Armenti as president, and he embarked upon a revitalization of the college that has had enrollment climbing steadily in the past decade. The college was considering changing its name when Armenti took the reigns, but his vision and a proactive board have produced a college that is attractive, more selective and reaches out with its programs to meet the needs of the industries that thrive in the new economy of Western PA.
While California University was reinventing itself, the county saw an opportunity to take advantage of the college’s strength and combine it with a major infrastructure improvement to create more jobs. In the late 1990’s California Technology Park was developed along the river at the northeast corner of California, just as the leg of the Mon-Fayette Expressway (also known as I-43) opened up connecting the town to I-70. The park is home to Cal-Ed Federal Credit Union, Department of Environmental Protection, DLC America, MBC Properties, Pennatronics, Perryman Company, Rose Plastics, and Timberline Packaging. Currently only six available parcels remain in the park. A little further north along Route 88 is Speers Industrial Park with its eleven tenants. With convenient access to At the opposite end of the county, just a bit south of the Pittsburgh International Airport lies an ambitious new park called Starpointe Business Park, located in Hanover Township outside Burgettstown. Developed by Fourth River Development of Pittsburgh, the park currently has three buildings. In addition to a multi-tenant flex building there are facilities for Lanxess Corp. and Volvo Rents, and a fourth 28,000 square foot flex building is getting underway. The development has added almost 200 jobs to the rolls, but that success is just the tip of the iceberg. “The master plan calls for a total of five million square feet of flex or research/development space when the project is completed,” says Fourth River’s Sally Flinn. “There will be 250,000 square feet of office space, 150,000 square feet of retail and restaurants to support them. Our projection of the economic impact is for the finished property to hold 1,200 jobs.” While the program is ambitious, and the municipal water and sewer systems are struggling to catch up to the demand, Starpointe’s location near the airport, and the surge in growth of energy production in the immediate area create conditions that bode well for the park’s success. At the center of the county, right at the crosshairs of the interstate highway intersections, sits the city of Washington. As the county seat, Washington is the site of the courthouse and jail, and all county administration. The revitalization of downtown Washington, which has been accomplished by an extended public/private partnership of investment, has succeeded in no small part because of the stability of jobs serving the city and county government. Washington Hospital has also continued to thrive as a caregiver and employer. During the past two years the hospital, under the leadership of CEO Telford Thomas, has undergone a major expansion. The $70 million new patient tower has allowed Washington Hospital to provide state-of-the-art care at the same time it continues to serve more and more patients. As important as the economic impact is W & J’s impact on the downtown Washington environment. With the assistance of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, the college and the city have developed a strategy for increased cooperation called the Blueprint for Collaboration, which describes the many opportunities for building on a renewed spirit of cooperation. In addition to ongoing efforts to improve the economic and social fabric of Washington, the partnership has undertaken a $14.5 million streetscape improvement program. Where the Jobs Are, Energy Once the world’s largest producer of oil, the United States has become its biggest importer in just over a quarter of a century. While moving away from dependence on oil is a desirable end, no current strategy exists to replace the need for fossil fuels. The brightest near-term option is to replace the refined petroleum products with natural gas. Compressed liquid propane is already in use as an alternative to automotive fuel, and gas-to-liquid technologies are available and emerging to allow the refining of diesel from natural gas. What makes this national economic and defense policy relevant to Washington County is the emergence of drilling technology that enables natural gas companies to exploit the largest natural gas fields discovered in America, the Marcellus Shale formation. All of Washington County sits on a portion of the formation, and more importantly, the county’s history of gas drilling and coal mining make it a logical place for the early Marcellus drillers to set up shop. Throughout the second half of 2008 and early 2009 construction was done to create some of the first natural gas production, refining and storage facilities in Western PA. The energy facility developer MarkWest invested $300 million in facilities that stretched from Houston to Burgettstown in western Washington County, so that companies like Atlas, Chesapeake and Range Resources could begin drilling and processing the natural gas in the region. During 2010, another large project is expected to develop in Majorsville on the Washington County/West Virginia border to allow transportation of the natural gas. What makes Marcellus Shale exciting to energy companies is that it is at a depth that allows extraction, even with commercial or residential areas directly above. Moreover, the size of the formation is mouthwatering. At an estimated 500 trillion cubic feet the Marcellus formation is ten times the size of the Barnet Shale formation of Northern Texas. To know what kind of jobs will be coming to the area of the Marcellus Formation we can get a good idea by looking to the Barnett formation. In this area there was no oil and gas activity to speak of until the Barnett Shale was discovered. In Texas and Arkansas there have been many new start up businesses catering to the oil and gas industry. These include “hot shot” or small equipment delivery services, water and oil hauling services, equipment rental services including water pumps and water line for hydraulic fracturing and more. Dozens of small construction companies have sprung up to build well locations and install tank batteries, build oilfield roads, and dig pipelines. These types of construction-based businesses will flourish in the Marcellus Formation areas. There will be jobs for workers skilled in heavy equipment operation, fabricating and welding. There will also be many jobs in the Marcellus Shale in drilling. Skilled and semi-skilled laborers will be needed to work on oil drilling rigs. Roughnecks can make as much as $40 per hour with overtime and roustabouts or laborers can make around half that. The increased emphasis on energy is creating opportunities for engineering and management expertise as well. The demand for these professionals is great enough that many people are relocating to the area, bringing demand for more housing, and keeping home values in Washington moving upward at a time when the national average has continued to sputter. What is Next for Washington County? While many economic barometers are pointing up for Washington County, the potential wealth that will follow the natural gas exploration looks to be a game changer for the area. Already the early leases have quietly made millionaires out of Washington County landowners. Many see energy as the fuse that will touch off the powder keg, even in the midst of a global downturn that has made home buyers more conservative. Paul Scarmazzi has seen the changing economy create more opportunity for his no-maintenance style of housing. “Our primary market used to be retirees, but the demographics are shifting to a younger buyer, the true Boomer who is looking to move to a different lifestyle as soon as the kids are off to college,” he observes. “We had research done on 6,500 Baby Boomers to identify their preferences in exteriors, pricing, floor plans, so that we could adjust our offerings.” Epcon Builders is now building single family detached units at its nearly complete Arden Mills community in Chartiers Township, and is breaking ground on a 50-lot plan in Cecil Township. Lewis Keith, of Keith Homes, builds homes just west of Washington in North Franklin Township. He believes he’s seen a tipping point in Washington County. “I’m halfway through a 100-lot subdivision, Sycamore Reserve, and my impression is that the worst of this bad stuff is over,” he observed. “I had a home in the Festival of Homes and we had the most traffic ever in that neighborhood. Buyers are more conservative than in the past but it seems like people are Serious buyers continue to look seriously at Washington County. Lower taxes, good schools and a growing economic base make for a great foundation to build upon. Plus, says Lewis Keith, it’s still a great place to live. “People still want to live in a place where there’s so much to do without having to give up the feeling and lifestyle of a small town,” he says. “My son and daughter-in-law are both captains in the military. They finish their active duty next year and are moving back to Washington to join the family business. This is still their favorite place |
leadership and visionary private investment, the economy of Washington County began to grow again. As the rest of the region watched population decline, Washington County saw its population swell. And the trend has continued, with the estimated 2010 population of 210,000 growing four percent compared to the 
As residents moved to the area in greater numbers, the mix of housing grew more varied. For buyers interested in northern Washington county there are a variety of options in unique custom homes and higher density neighborhoods. Growing demand attracted the interest of high-volume builders Ryan Homes and Heartland Homes, whose communities dot all three municipalities. But the area also boasts a handful of smaller custom homebuilders, most of who build almost exclusively in this sub-market. Ted Taylor Homes, Brian Homes, Timberland Homes, are a few of those active in this area.