Cranberry Woods sale confirms the value of planning

Late last month, the entire Cranberry Woods Business Park complex, except for its Westinghouse, MSA and Regional Learning Alliance campuses, was sold to a Pittsburgh-based investment group. Altogether, it included 460,000 square feet of office space, and it sold for $89.5 million. If you do the math, that’s a little more than $185 per square foot. But, according to the Pittsburgh Business Times, the average price per square foot for suburban Class A office space in western Pennsylvania today is just $90, and in downtown Pittsburgh it’s $67. That’s a huge difference, and it didn’t simply happen. Way back in the early ‘90s, our Board of Supervisors worked with MSA on creating the vision for a world-class business park capable of competing with the Carolinas for knowledge-based industries. It became part of our 1995 comprehensive plan. And over the following years, we worked hard to implement that plan. I think it’s fair to say that the recent sale of Cranberry Woods validates the merit of formulating a vision and following it through.