ArcelorMittal sells portion of Weirton steel mill property
The cold blast furnaces at the former Weirton Steel plant stand in the north end of Weirton. Officials with the Frontier Group of Companies of Buffalo announced Wednesday they have completed the purchase of 1,100 acres of former mill property. Area economic development officials say the Weirton Steel property sale could clear the way for numerous economic development opportunities.
The oxygen process building was part of the Weirton Steel property sold Wednesday.
A Buffalo, N.Y., company that specializes in the redevelopment of former industrial sites has completed its purchase of 1,100 acres in Weirton, W.Va., from ArcelorMittal Steel.
The sale price paid by Frontier Group of Companies was not disclosed when the deal was announced Wednesday, but the property includes the idled areas of the plant’s basic oxygen process shop, the blast furnace and ore yard, rail siding and barge loading and unloading facilities.
Much of the property was not in operation for several years.
The sale was originally announced in mid-2015 by the Luxembourg-based steelmaker.
“We believe the Weirton facility, like other industrial sites we have redeveloped, has tremendous attributes and potential,” said David Franjoine, president of the Frontier Group, which has completed numerous industrial, development, energy, mixed-use, commercial and residential projects in North and South America.
Franjoine said that with the sale of the Weirton property finalized, Frontier will begin determining the future development and reuse possibilities for the site.
Pat Ford, executive director of the Business Development Corp. of the Northern Panhandle, said Thursday that his group, which has been buying up vacant industrial sites or working with other groups to acquire them and turn them into usable sites, is helping Frontier with finding companies to repurpose the Weirton site for other industrial uses.
According to Ford, some of the possibilities that BDC has identified include value-added metals production, energy, chemical processing, transportation logistics and health care.
While BDC has helped to return many industrial sites in the Ohio Valley over the last several years, Ford said the sale of the Weirton site “is great news” because it is the only one in his area that has all forms of transportation infrastructure – rail, barge and road – making it attractive to many types of industrial companies.
He added that the site is “ideally located” between the site of the Shell ethane cracker plant that will begin construction this year in Monaca, Beaver County, and another proposed ethane cracker in Belmont County, Ohio.
Frontier is also in the process of redeveloping the former Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel property in Mingo Junction, Ohio, some of which was recently sold to ACERO Junction, which plans to restart steelmaking operations there.
The Weirton mill was founded in 1909 by Ernest T. Weir, who built it into one of the world’s leading steel producers as Weirton Steel Corp., once employing as many as 15,000 people.
Despite Wednesday’s sale of the steelmaking assets, the tin plate operation at Weirton remains an active business for ArcelorMittal, employing about 900 people.