Westinghouse ground-breaking today

From the Post-Gazette:

Gov. Ed Rendell will be in Cranberry today for the groundbreaking at Westinghouse Electric's new corporate campus in Cranberry, an 82-acre, 800,000-square-foot project billed as the largest of its kind in state history.

The fast-growing nuclear power engineering firm almost left for South Carolina last year, but the state was able to keep it here with the creation of a special taxing district that will save Westinghouse $45 million.

Following today's groundbreaking, employees who currently work in Monroeville and Churchill will have to wait until 2009 and 2010 to occupy the $175 million Cranberry complex.

Westinghouse expects to hire 1,500 new employees this year plus an additional one to two thousand over the next few years.

In related news, part of Westinghouse's parent company Toshiba was purchased by Kazakhstan's state-run energy company Kazatomprom. More details in the Tribune-Review.