From slag heap to solar field: Pittsburgh transforming Swisshelm Park site

A slag heap once eyed as part of a major housing development in Pittsburgh’s Swisshelm Park neighborhood is being remediated as a 55-acre expansion of Frick Park and a 15-acre solar field.

The site, purchased by the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority in 1972 from the former Duquesne Slag Co., is adjacent to the Somerset at Frick housing development that overlooks the inbound Squirrel Hill Tunnel on the Parkway East. But the location is farther down in the valley, and planners ultimately decided that providing a new access road to the site with a bridge across Nine Mile Run and extending water service to the area made it very expensive to develop.

So about six years ago, the agency made the “very tough” decision to forgo housing at the site, said Lilly Freedman, the agency’s manager of development projects. Instead, it took the suggestion of a former manager to investigate the idea of using part of the site to develop a solar field and, working with consultants, found about 15 acres that would work for that use.

When that work is done later this year, the URA will donate 55 acres of the site to the city for an expansion of Frick Park’s 644 acres. And it will put out a request for proposals to develop the 15-acre solar field.

“We’re really very excited” that the isolated environmentally compromised site can be converted into two positive benefits to the community, Freedman said.

Site remediation

The URA worked with Civil and Environmental Consultants Inc. to develop the best way to remediate the slag heap. The city has been under a consent decree since 2000 with the state Department of Environmental Protection to remediate the site before reusing it.

Because disengaging and moving tons of slag would release a lot of potentially dangerous dust, they decided the best method was to cap the site.

Since April, contractor Brex Enterprises has trucked tons of clean fill to put a 1-foot layer on top of the slag, followed later this year by topsoil and the planting of trees, grass and shrubs to hold the dirt in place and keep the slag from releasing its toxins. The capping should be done by the end of August, but planting will wait until the best weather conditions for new growth, probably in the fall.

“The goal is to eliminate to the greatest extent possible the ability of that slag to get out,” Freedman said. The agency is remediating the site for the highest possible reuse rather than the minimum, she said.

“No matter what the site would have been used for, it would have to be remediated,” she said. “Now, in the future, the land will be ready for whatever.”

Beginning Monday, the Nine Mile Run Trail will be closed between Commercial Street and Duck Hollow until July 18. The agency recommends trail users enter from Beechwood Boulevard at the Riverview Trail/Blue Slide Playground entrance or the Beechwood Gate Entrance.  

Initially the trail had been scheduled to be closed much longer so trucks could haul in the dirt, but the URA and contractor found they could use access from Love Street for most of the work.

The work is being paid for through a $2 million brownfield remediation grant from the federal Environmental Protection Agency and $4 million from former President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan.

Future solar field

By the end of the year, the URA expects to put out a request for proposals from solar companies interested in leasing 15 acres of the site for a solar field. If all goes well, 40-year panels could be installed beginning in early 2027.

The URA has been working with the Pennsylvania Solar Center to project possible energy production from the site and to navigate the state’s tricky development regulations. They believe ground panels installed at the site could generate 3 megawatts of electricity each year, enough to power 175 homes.

But here’s where it gets complicated in Pennsylvania.

Unlike 24 other states, Pennsylvania has no law to regulate community solar systems, where a group of customers get together to develop the system and share the power it produces. As a result, whoever develops the solar field in Swisshelm Park would have to sell the power to one customer within a 2-mile radius of the production site.

And because the URA is the owner of the site, the customer must be inside the city limits.

Despite those restrictions, Freedman said she is confident the URA will find a large apartment building, business or nonprofit that can take the electricity produced at the site. Any power that customer can’t use would go to Duquesne Light Co.’s power grid.

The URA and Councilwoman Barb Warwick will hold an online community meeting at 6 p.m. July 17 to update residents on the project. Registration is required.