Spotlight On: Donald Smith, President, Regional Industrial Development Corporation (RIDC)
June 2025 — “We should prioritize timely approvals for projects that align with the region’s outlook,” said Regional Industrial Development Corporation President Donald Smith in an interview with Invest:. Smith highlighted the organization’s focus on strategic development and priorities including revitalizing underutilized sites and fostering growth in key sectors like autonomy and advanced manufacturing to drive economic development in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
What are the most significant milestones or highlights for RIDC in the last year?
We’ve had a busy and positive past couple of years. We are still working on the former Sony plant in Westmoreland County, a project we took over and have redeveloped into a multi-tenant facility. We now have close to 2 million square feet leased in that facility.
So, it is generating 1,200 on-site jobs. That’s been a big success. And at that same location, we’re in the process of developing PennSTART, which will be a state-of-the-art shared test track and research facility for autonomous technology companies and first responders.
We’ve expanded our partnership with Westmoreland County and are tackling a new project now with them in the city of New Kensington. It was a former Alcoa production facility on the river that shut down in 1972.
It’s been operated as storage or low-end space for a while, but we’ve taken over the space. We attracted our first major tenant, a great advanced manufacturing company called Rebuild Manufacturing, and we have three or four other prospects that we’re talking with now. We’re excited about that partnership.
Overall, our portfolio has been very good. We’ve built and completed three spec buildings in the last two years. We’re looking for new investment for companies in those spaces, but we have a product now for companies to consider.
What makes the Greater Pittsburgh region an ideal location for industrial and innovation-focused development?
We have three or four main advantages over many of our competitors. On the innovation side, it’s our colleges and universities. There’s Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and 23 other schools around the region that are producing a stream of both high-end talent as well as cutting-edge research in important fields, from energy and AI to cell and gene therapies and more. I think our primary innovation asset is our university and college base, which is terrific.
We also have natural resources — our watershed is the most reliable in the United States. Water is such a critical commodity, and we have an abundance of clean and available water at low cost for companies that need it for industrial processes, cooling, and other cases. I think that’s a real advantage.
Another advantage is that we have not only world class innovation assets, but also a strong manufacturing base. We create an opportunity to have those activities in close proximity which most of the coastal markets do not.
We also have cost advantages. If you compare the cost of real estate or personnel to Boston, San Francisco, or Austin, we compete very favorably on the cost of doing business. And then lastly, I’d say for manufacturing and industrial activity, we have such a long history of shift work and manufacturing employment that we have a knowledgeable and ready-to-go workforce.
What is the current investor sentiment towards the Pittsburgh market right now?
It’s surprisingly overwhelming. We’ve had a real burst of energy-related companies making investments. But given the strengths in our economy as well as the importance of AI and its emergence, we’re seeing slower investment than we’d like to see, especially given the advantages that we have.
One of the things that we and our partners at the Allegheny Conference and others are working on this year is proactively getting the message out about the great opportunities that exist here and trying to stimulate investment.
Industrial, which had been very strong over the last few years, has cooled a little bit. We’re looking to jumpstart that as well as get the tech economy fired up again.
What are the specific sectors that are currently generating the most interest?
Everybody in the world seems to be chasing data centers right now. I think the Pittsburgh region is no different in that regard. I’m much more excited about some of the other industries that are lower-power consumers and create more jobs.
Carnegie Mellon is ranked as the No. 1 AI program in the country, and we need to find a way to leverage that. The University of Pittsburgh has some real strengths in the application of AI to medicine, which is such an important field.
Given UPMC’s presence in the region and one of the largest integrated health systems in the country, we have a great platform for the application of those technologies.
I think those sectors have the greatest promise. And lastly, when you’re sitting on the second-largest concentration of natural gas reserves in the world, natural gas should be and can be a really important part of that economy.
What is your assessment of the workforce and talent available?
Well, you can never have enough talent. And in particular, I think our region is extraordinarily strong on engineering talent, but less so on the business and investment side.
We do have a strong banking and investment sector, but when you look at entrepreneurial management who can take great technologies and turn them into great companies, I think that’s where we could use some more depth in our talent pool.
We’re still very good on the technical side, engineering, as well as financial management and fintech.
I think the entrepreneurial management gap is something that we would like to fill, as companies can only absorb so many fresh graduates. We need some more of those three to seven years of experience workers who can drive companies forward.
What is the impact of today’s economy on your organization?
We haven’t seen a market change in business yet. What we have seen is that companies are being a little more deliberate about their decision-making because nobody knows what the rules are going to be tomorrow.
When things are changing so quickly, that’s a real challenge for the investment environment. As we like to say, you tell us the rules and we’ll figure out how to make the project work. But when you change the rules every day, it makes it much more difficult to make those long-term investments.
I think we’ve seen a little bit of caution from companies trying to figure out what’s going on. We had already seen some reshoring, with companies bringing manufacturing back to the United States, and expect that the current macro trends will continue to push that.
But, in the real estate business, interest rate sensitivity is a real thing. And so higher, longer is not the phrase we love to hear about the interest rate environment. We’d love to see those go down again because it does present some real challenges in financing projects.
We’re also fortunate because RIDC executes almost every major project in partnership with public partners ranging from County IDCs to authorities. Our most recent new partnership is with the Allegheny County Airport Authority to catalyze an advanced manufacturing park adjacent to the soon to be open new terminal.
What are your top priorities for RIDC over these next two to three years?
I think our top priorities are continuing to provide sites and buildings that are available so that we can move quickly to accommodate companies when they discover what a great place Pittsburgh is to invest in.
Companies don’t want to wait two or three years to move into their building. They want to be able to make decisions and move quickly. Since markets change so quickly these days, you have to move fast.
We’re focused on getting that product pipeline together and working with our partners, the Allegheny Conference, and others, to make sure that we’re getting the message out to the right companies who then will understand why it makes sense for them to have a Pittsburgh region location for their company.
From an outlook perspective, it’s hard to know where the country is headed right now. The macroeconomic environment is, of course, the biggest single influence on all businesses. But we have a lot of assets and resources in important and strategic areas like energy and AI and robotics and life sciences. I think it’s up to us to capitalize on those. For RIDC, I’m bullish on the project pipeline that we have and on the projects that we have developed.
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