Pennsylvania to close state prison in Pittsburgh

Pennsylvania opted to close the state prison in Pittsburgh because of its real estate value and Allegheny County's low unemployment rate, the Department of Corrections secretary said Thursday.

Secretary John Wetzel said SCI Pittsburgh, which opened in 1882 along the Ohio River in the city's Marshall-Shadeland neighborhood, stood out among four other prisons that state officials were considering for closure because it has the greatest potential for future development.

Pittsburgh-area officials said they are interested in gaining control of the property.

"We're talking about riverfront property," Wetzel told reporters after visiting with prison staff. "We're talking about an area that is really growing. Out of the five areas, we're talking about an area with the lowest unemployment rate."

The department will begin work to close the faciliy on June 30.

Allegheny County's unemployment rate is 4.8 percent compared to more than 5 percent for Mercer, Wayne, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties where the other prisons are located, according to the state Department of Labor and Industry.

Those prisons in Mercer, Waymart, Retreat and Frackville will remain open, but Wetzel said they again could be targeted for closing if state financial conditions worsen.

State officials decided to shutter SCI Pittsburgh, known locally as Western Penitentiary, on Wednesday and announced the closing Thursday, citing a declining prison population and state budget deficit of $600 million that could grow to $1.7 billion in the next fiscal year.

Closing the prison will save the state about $81 million annually, officials said. The state's inmate population has dropped by 2,400 since 2012.

The Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association criticized the move, saying it was decided with little transparency or public input.

State Sen. Wayne Fontana, D-Brookline, said he was disappointed in a "hasty and flawed process" used to decide the closing.

Wetzel said the decision was difficult and came with the understanding that there would be winners and losers.

"I do think that there was transparency in this process," he said. "We announced our intentions. We put a list out. We went through a hearing and heard different concerns. We factored those things in and made a decision."

The corrections department will offer Pittsburgh's 550 employees jobs at other facilities within 90 miles of their homes, Wetzel said. He said Pittsburgh's diagnostic and classification center and mental health and cancer treatment units would be moved to other prisons.

"You see the pain of the staff whose lives are turned upside down when a prison's going to close," Wetzel said. "There is a significant impact on staff... and we don't take that lightly."

He said officials attempted to mitigate hardship by closing one prison instead of two as originally planned. The move impacted 550 as opposed to 800 employees, he said.

It was unclear how development of the 24-acre prison site might proceed. It includes 42 buildings inside and outside its walls, according to the Corrections Department website.

Kevin Acklin, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto's chief of staff and chairman of the city's Urban Redevelopment Authority, called it "very valuable riverfront property."

"It is very early, but we would engage a community process to determine potential uses for the site, but it could support a number of uses, including housing, commercial and light industrial," Acklin said. "Securing the SCI Pittsburgh site would complement our efforts to enhance the riverfront access on a key stretch of the Ohio River."

Troy Thompson, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of General Services, which manages state property, said officials must classify the prison as "surplus property" and then determine if another state agency can use it.

He said the state can convey it to a redevelopment authority such as the URA, or the Legislature can vote to sell it to a third party through competitive bidding.

He said the state would have the property assessed once approved for sale.

Beaver County in 2001 sold its Civil War-era jail in Beaver to a developer who disassembled the stone building and walls — similar to those used at SCI Pittsburgh — block by block and sold them as construction material. The developer built high-end condominiums on the property overlooking a borough park.

This is the second time SCI Pittsburgh has been closed and this would mark the second prison closure in Western Pennsylvania since June 2013 when the state closed SCI Greensburg in Hempfield.

The state "mothballed" SCI Pittsburgh in 2005 and reopened it in 2007 because of an increasing inmate population.

An investigation in 2011 uncovered widespread inmate abuse at the facility. At least 30 inmates were abused and sexually assaulted in the prison's F-Block, and authorities arrested seven guards.