On a stretch of land tucked against the western edge of Pittsburgh International Airport, something genuinely unprecedented is taking shape. Leaders from across Allegheny County gathered this week to break ground on the second building at Neighborhood 91, the world's first campus designed from scratch to concentrate the entire additive manufacturing supply chain in a single location. The new facility, a 108,000-square-foot multi-tenant building set on 5.8 acres, is backed by $16 million in combined funding from Allegheny County, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Regional Industrial Development Corporation.
When finished, it will expand a campus that has already proven its concept in striking fashion. The first Neighborhood 91 building, anchored by companies including Cumberland Additive, Metal Powder Works, HAMR Industries, RJ Lee Group, and Westmoreland Mechanical Testing and Research, is fully occupied. The companies there are co-located deliberately so that raw materials, processing, production, and quality testing happen in the same physical ecosystem. According to Allegheny County Airport Authority CEO Christina Cassotis, the results have exceeded expectations.
That momentum is the story of Neighborhood 91 in miniature: a bold idea, rooted in Pittsburgh's manufacturing identity, that is quietly becoming a national model for how to build an industrial ecosystem in the age of advanced materials and digital fabrication. Additive manufacturing, the umbrella term for technologies commonly called 3D printing, has moved well beyond prototypes and novelty parts. Aerospace, defense, healthcare, and consumer manufacturing are all adopting it at scale. The companies best positioned to capitalize are those that can iterate quickly, reduce material waste, and compress supply chains. Neighborhood 91 was designed specifically to make all of that easier.
A Blueprint Pittsburgh Is Writing Alone
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato put it plainly at the groundbreaking ceremony: "Neighborhood 91 is the first campus of its kind in the entire world. It is a unique and intentionally designed space to bring the entire additive manufacturing and supply chain together in one location." That design philosophy sets N91 apart from traditional industrial parks. Companies that join the campus are not simply renting square footage; they are plugging into a shared ecosystem with on-site industrial gas production, proximity to one of the region's busiest cargo airports, and immediate access to rail, waterways, and highway corridors.
John Barnes, president of The Barnes Global Advisors and a partner in the development, framed the vision in terms Pittsburgh knows well. "What we are building here is a modern-day manufacturing Silicon Valley," he said. "A destination where companies that want to be part of the future of manufacturing come because they know it's where it's happening." RIDC President Donald F. Smith Jr. added that the second building is not an endpoint. "This site is the foundational asset that will attract other companies and talent and enable us to announce the next building, and the next building, and the building after that."
State Sen. Devlin Robinson, whose district includes the airport, pointed to the public-private structure as a feature, not a footnote. "Neighborhood 91 is a prime example of public-private partnerships that can exist when research from our leading universities meets investment from private industry all located here on airport property." Carnegie Mellon, Pitt, and a constellation of regional research institutions have long fed talent and intellectual property into Pittsburgh's manufacturing sector. At N91, that pipeline has a physical address.
What It Means for Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh has spent years building a reputation as a city that sits at the intersection of old-industry grit and new-economy innovation. Neighborhood 91 is perhaps the clearest physical expression of that identity: a campus where legacy manufacturing expertise meets next-generation materials science, where a city that once built the steel for the world's bridges is now building the machines and materials that will shape what comes next. With the Phase Two groundbreaking, construction expected this summer and an anchor tenant announcement anticipated soon, the question is no longer whether this experiment works. It already does. The question now is how big Pittsburgh is willing to let it grow.