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Demolition began this month of the former Precoat Metals plant on Walnut Street in the city's 12th Ward.

The facility, which painted and coated steel coils for use in building materials, was closed last March by its St. Louis, Mo., based parent company, itself a division of Sequa Corp.

Sequa Corp. is owned in turn by The Carlyle Group, a New York investment firm known for its powerful connections in the global defense, energy and telecommunications industries.

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It is unknown whether Precoat is marketing the site for future development.

Messages left by the Almanac for a spokeswoman at the company's St. Louis headquarters were not immediately returned.

However, demolition of the existing buildings would seem to make it unlikely that manufacturing will ever return to the property.

Precoat purchased the facility with its 1995 acquisition of McKeesport-based Enamel Products and Plating Co., founded in the 1970s by the late Jack Valoon. The facility employed 135 people --- members of the United Steelworkers union --- in the 1970s, according to published reports.

The Enamel Products factory in turn had its roots as part of the former Artcraft Venetian Blind Manufacturing Co., which supplied its namesake products to chain stores such as Sears, Roebuck & Co.; J.C. Penney Co.; S.S. Kresge Co.; and city-based G.C. Murphy Co.

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About 100 people were employed at Precoat's city plant at the time of the shutdown; at the time of the closing, a company spokesman blamed overcapacity and the global downturn in the construction industry for its decision to close the facility, then one of eight nationwide.

Covering approximately eight acres of land between Walnut Street and the Yough River hiking-biking trail, the Precoat facility was assessed by Allegheny County at more than $1.2 million.

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City officials have worked to attract retail development to a neighboring property once occupied by Reliance Steel Products and later by Steffan Industries.

Part of that site at the intersection of Walnut and Eden Park Boulevard is now occupied by a Rite Aid store; the remaining 2.8 acres is vacant.

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Meanwhile, the city and officials from Regional Industrial Development Corp. continue efforts to market the space soon to be vacated by Dish Network's call center.

Colorado-based Dish earlier this month sent the city the official 60-day plant closing notice required under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. According to the letter, the facility will close for good on March 5. About 600 people will lose their jobs.

Speaking for background only, city officials say they have had very productive meetings with potential tenants for the 105,000-square-foot building in the industrial park on the former U.S. Steel National Works site.

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Rumors aired by KDKA Radio's Marty Griffin on his daily talk show and on the KDKA-TV news --- which alleged that Dish Network was unable to hire Mon-Yough residents because they couldn't pass drug tests --- angered city Councilman Darryl Segina.

At this month's city council meeting, Segina accused the company of spreading the rumors to justify its decision to move.

"I'm really kind of insulted that they chose to burn their bridges on the way out of town," he said. "It was their failure that's causing them to move out --- not ours."

Segina said Dish was unable to retain qualified employees once they found them: "Maybe they should have questioned their management techniques instead. They were able to get people to work for them. They just weren't able to keep them."

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Segina accused Dish of leaving solely because the tax breaks used to attract the facility to McKeesport is running out.

"We gave them 10 years of tax increment financing and made thousands of dollars of road improvements down there," he said. "We bent over backwards with county, state and federal money to get them here.

"I think they knew three years ago that they planned to leave," Segina said. "They just waited until they would have to start paying McKeesport taxes."

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Mayor James Brewster said he also took exception to the rumors aired by KDKA's Griffin, but that there was nothing to link them to Dish Network.

"We had been negotiating with them for the past year to try and extend their lease on the millsite," Brewster said. Dish wanted both improvements made to the building and lease concessions that weren't feasible, the mayor said.

But the city did work with Dish Network --- and will work with future tenants --- to help recruit potential employees, Brewster added. "If a company comes here, we've got to get people down there to fill those jobs," he said.

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