Westinghouse's new site just got bigger

Even though Westinghouse isn't planning to move into their new Cranberry offices until 2009, they've already expanded. Business is growing, and with it is an increase in staff. Some highlights from two articles today:

Post-Gazette:

The nuclear power plant company recently made the decision to add 140,000 square feet to the three-building complex now under construction inside an office park near the intersection of Interstate 79 and Route 288. An extra floor will be built atop two of the three structures.

"Adding the additional floors gives us flexibility for the future," Westinghouse spokesman Vaughn Gilbert said in an e-mail. "Also, hiring is accelerating."

The addition of two floors bumps the size of the new campus above 920,000 square feet. To put that in perspective, the Westinghouse square footage now will be larger than all but four of Downtown's biggest office towers (the U.S. Steel Tower, One Mellon Center, One Oxford Centre and 525 William Penn Place).

Tribune-Review:

We will move about 2,400 to 2,600 people from our current headquarters in Monroeville and our facilities in Churchill and then expect to hire a minimum of 1,000 people at that facility," Gilbert said.

That's in contrast to about 2,000 existing employees and an additional 1,000 when Westinghouse announced its choice of the Cranberry site in March.

"There's a potential for even more (hiring) down the road if business continues to grow at the speed it is," Gilbert said. "We also have an option to build a fourth building out there."

As reported by the Tribune-Review last month, the company already hired 850 employees in the fiscal year ended March 31, and projected it may hire another 1,300 in the current year.