The inmates are to be moved to Camp Hill and the employees, 300 of which are correctional officers, will be given jobs elsewhere in the system.
Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association President Jason Bloom said the speed with which the decision was made was unfair to the officers, who have had no time to adjust to any move—which could be as far as 90 miles away.
“The problem is for families that have laid down roots within a reasonable drive time from their job and their job site. That’s why they located where they did,” he said.
Fontana also said the process was too quick, and has offered legislation that would require more public hearings before prisons are closed. Now that it’s a done deal, he said, redevelopment is key.
“The immediate future is to find somebody interested and come up with a plan to put it back on the tax rolls and create jobs,” he said.
The site of what was called Western Penn, when it opened in 1882, is 24 acres, on the river with a city view. On the other hand, the structure itself is more than a century old.
Though there is not a lot of redevelopment history with prison sites, Beaver County sold its 1860s-era jail to a developer who disassembled it and sold the stones for reuse. The site was then redeveloped into housing. Allegheny County repurposed its jail into courtrooms.
The state would have to declare the site as “surplus property” before it could be conveyed to a developer or an entity like the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority.
Kevin Acklin, URA chairman, called it “very valuable riverfront property.”
“It could support a number of uses, including housing, commercial and light industrial,” he said. “Securing the SCI Pittsburgh site would complement our efforts to enhance the riverfront access on a key stretch of the Ohio River.”
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