Pat Gallagher of Butler loads glass into a tempering furnace at United Plate Glass in Connoquenessing Township. The Kriess Road Business Park is a former greenfield development, which means agricultural land was transformed into the business park.

The Community Development Corporation of Butler County uses public and private money to attract businesses to the county or to retain businesses here.

Its goal is to create jobs.

To that end, the CDC in recent years has developed several business parks, including Kriess Road Park in Connoquenessing Township, Victory Road Business Park in Clinton Township and Pullman Business Center in Butler.

Here's a look at those parks.

The CDC bought the former Pullman Standard rail car building site in 1992.The land that has since become the Pullman Square Shopping Center was bought from the CDC by the J.J. Gumberg Co., which also owns Clearview Mall and Cranberry Mall. The shopping center is anchored by Shop 'n Save and Kmart.The remaining 12 acres to the south of the shopping center have been almost completely developed by the CDC into the Pullman Business Center.Diane Sheets, executive director of the CDC, said between 1992 and 1998, when renovations to one of the Pullman Standard's former locker/shower buildings began, there were several false starts and discarded plans for the business park.Sheets said no private developer was interested in the property, so when the state approved a $500,000 grant to help the CDC pay for infrastructure improvements, the organization jumped at the chance to move forward with that project.Under the guidance of then-executive director Art Cordwell, improvements began with the CDC using the former Pullman bathhouse at as its headquarters.Since then, all of the property has been bought and built on. By the beginning of March all buildings will be at 100 percent occupancy.In response to critics of the project, who claimed the Pullman Business Center has robbed Butler's Main Street of tenants, Sheets said the businesses that have relocated to Pullman, for the most part were planning to leave the city altogether.Keeping these businesses in the city has helped the cash-strapped city, which is struggling to maintain and grow its tax base, she said.The only parcel that has yet to be developed in the business park is owned by Bill O'Donnell, the Butler County clerk.

The CDC bought about 44 acres on Kriess Road in 1999 in a deal to keep Wise Business Forms in Butler County.Kriess Road is a greenfield development, meaning the land developed had been used for agriculture before it became the business park.About that same time in 1999, United Plate Glass, with offices and a plant in Butler, was looking to expand, but found itself landlocked in the city. Also, city building codes made construction of a manufacturing building cost prohibitive.Pittsburgh Plastics, which also was a landlocked business located by the park-n-ride lot on Route 528, needed to expansion.Those to companies moved to Kriess Road.To fill out the park, Sophisticated Alloys joined the other companies.Through state grants and other money, the CDC spent $1.2 million on park infrastructure. The CDC's outlay of money has been recouped by the organization, and a landowners association now oversees the park.The CDC also helped to establish a LERTA district for the Kriess Road park. LERTA stands for Local Economic Revitalization Tax Act District.The primary mission of LERTA is to improve the economic and business climate of certain residential and commercial districts by lessening the tax burden on new development.That meant businesses that moved into the park were eligible for a five-year tax abatement with an incremental tax schedule.Businesses pay no property taxes for the first two years after they built at the Kriess Road park. The schedule then calls for businesses to pay 30 percent of their tax value in the third year, 60 percent in the fourth year and 100 percent in the fifth year.Both United Plate Glass and Pittsburgh Plastics have expanded their original operations, with United Plate Glass currently completing a third expansion.This LERTA abatement schedule applies to these new developments, although the companies are the original buyers in the park.There is no space left at the park.

In 1998, Gov. Tom Ridge's administration began pushing for greater development of brownfield sites, which is land that is being redeveloped.That put the CDC in "the right place at the right time," Sheets said.The CDC bought the 425-acre site that had been the home to a U.S. Steel sintering plant, which closed in 1987.Sheets said the state came forward with about $4 million for infrastructure and development.The CDC invested another $7 million of its own money, money through low-interest loans and land sales.The organization built and then gave the Saxonburg Water Authority a $679,000 water tower that was built in the park, and Clinton Township residents have reaped the benefits of a $1 million upgrade to the Route 228-Victory Road intersection completed several years ago by the state Department of Transportation.The CDC also donated 75 acres that was too steep for development to Clinton Township for a community park.Then in 2005, the CDC's sister organization, the Butler Economic Development Corp., opened a 10,000-square-foot Agri-Business Incubator in Victory Road. Its first tenant is the Butler Onion Network, made up of farmers who grow and market the Pennsylvania Simply Sweet Onion.The cost was $700,000 with $500,000 coming from a R.K. Mellon Foundation grant.The state also designated the business park as a Keystone Opportunity Zone, in which, with the approval of all taxing bodies, a 10-year tax abatement was put into place. That abatement period expires in 2010.When the CDC bought the property, USX was paying a total of about $62,000 in taxes per year."Now the property has $45 million in capital assets and between $7 million to $8 million in assessed value," Sheets said.Of the original 425 acres, 112 are still left for development.Businesses in the park are:• An Aldi's distribution facility• Kayberry, a maker of decorative pre-cast concrete items• Gavin Industries, a maker of clean rooms• Productive Products and Services, which repairs GPS units• Cygnus, contract machining• Ram Transit, a trucking firm• Brayman Construction Co., one of the nation's largest construction firms• Castcon, a maker of pre-cast concrete stairs and other items.

This aerial photograph shows The Pullman Square Shopping and Business Center, which was built on the site of the former Pullman Standard plant. The land was bought by the Community Development Corporation of Butler County and the J.J. Gumberg Co., which also owns Clearview Mall and Cranberry Mall.