Weston wants to be its own developer

Weston Solutions, the employee-owned West Chester firm with a decades-long record as a contamination cleanup specialist, has started financing and developing its own "brownfields" properties.

Under boss Patrick McCann, the 1,800-worker, $500 million yearly sales firm is buying distressed properties, renovating buildings and seeking to attract its own tenants, in addition to its longtime engineering work for developer-clients.

"We're moving into the transactional arena," alongside the "the request-for-proposals business model," Kathleen A. McGinty told me. Formerly Gov. Rendell's top environmental official, McGinty spent the past two years prospecting for "clean tech" private investment deals, before joining Weston last week to head its new Green Development Division.

McGinty's also on the boards of NRG Corp. (where she helped repel a takeover attempt by Exelon Corp.,) Weston, and Iberdola, the Spanish wind-energy company she helped Rendell lure to Pennsylvania with state incentives.

At a time when banks are reluctant to lend to builders, "we have a very, very solid balance sheet, and we're increasingly putting that balance sheet to work to make projects grow," McGinty says.

"This involves risk-taking, and bringing a variety of players to the table... On some projects, we'll own the property. On some projects, we're taking environmental liabilities onto our balance sheet. And sometimes we'll become the initial tenant,"  expanding Weston's network of 60 offices to attract other tenants.

Does Weston have what it takes? I asked Brian O'Neill, who rebuilt "brownfield" properties along the Schuylkill and in other states before running into trouble with his bankers in the current slump.

O'Neill said hiring McGinty is a step in the right direction: "She's one of the brightest most charistmatic executives I've evern met. She has a total understanding of the environmental field. And whatever she sets her mind to she will no dobut accomplish," O'Neill told me. "As to Weston, I welcome the presence of such a high quality firm in the brownfield development business and would love to do some joint ventures with them."

In Concord, N.H., Weston says it's been converting a contaminated, rundown factory site into a "green" office building with "zero stormwater discharge." In Lakewood, Colo., Weston took over a contaminated former auto dealership and started work on an office and retail complex where it will be the anchor tenant. In Hawaii, it's turning a former gasworks into condominiums.

Weston prefers working in small cities and townships, says vice president Jay Motwani. As a wastewater and contamination consultant, he and other veterans have often found themselves facing hostile and suspicious citizens, activists and local officials, and that's given them skills his boss, Mid-Atlantic Division Manager Larry Bove, says are useful in managing urban redevelopments.

In Chester, for example, Buccini/Pollin Group of Wilmington last year hired Weston to deal with soil contamination and impacting at its Philadelphia Union soccer stadium, but ended up using Weston also as its community-relations arm, says Mayor Walter Butler.

"We had them come and explain to lay people, residents and activists, exactly how this remediation was going to occur," Butler told me. "They did it step by step. When unknowns popped up in the excavations, they called (state officials) over to take samples. They never did anything before they contacted my office first. They put the information online, and they put it in the Chester library. I thought that was great." That made it possible to spend millions of dollars," both taxpayer and private, "bringing the contaminated waterfront up to living standards."

"The facility was very, very valuable to Chester, and we wanted it to feel good from a community perspective," Motwani told me. Years of town meetings on Superfund sites and other controversial projects taught him to deal with "many a contentious moment, and with mastering data so people can understand it. That's what we do."

Weston is among the companies reviewing plans to build "transit-oriented communities" in the Septa service area. "We're interested," especially in suburban locations, McGinty said. But with so many government and private interests involved, "it's not for the faint of heart, bringing these projects together."