How Has Cranberry Created Such Successful Business Growth?

By Jack Etzel

Cranberry Township dates back to 1804, but today there’s nothing ‘dated’ about the growth and development of this once sleepy spot of cranberry bogs in the southwest corner of Butler County.

This month, North Hills Monthly sits down with Cranberry Township Manager Jerry A. Andree to talk about one of Pennsylvania’s most successful municipal stories. Andree has served in his present top position since 1991. He is a 1976 graduate of Penn State University from which he holds a master’s degree in Public Administration.

North Hills Monthly Magazine (NHMM): Getting right to it, what’s the formula for Cranberry’s successful business growth?

Jerry Andree: Two words: careful planning. Our governing body is our board of supervisors. The members of that board firmly believe in treating a vision as a collaborative process of working with residents. That means taking care of the residents first, and everything follows that. Since the mid ‘90s, every member of our board has been careful to always look to the future—a sustainable and healthy future—and then make business decisions based upon that long-term view. Then you must implement what you’ve planned. We’re not just interested in the short-term view, but the long term of both planning and implementation. Following that comes constant monitoring, occasionally making moderate modifications along the way, if necessary, but the key always remains planning and implementation.

NHMM: What do you consider long term? A year, a decade…

Andree: We just adopted a new Cranberry plan last April that takes us to the year 2030. It includes extensive input from residents, and in return we’ll supply them with regular public updates as we move along.

NHMM: When we say the word ‘business,’ retail stores and malls are pretty much one thing. But when something like Westinghouse moves into Cranberry, it’s quite another. Is there more major manufacturing coming this way?

Andree: I have to say that Westinghouse is not manufacturing; it’s a major business, yes, but it’s actually a professional engineering facility. You mentioned retail. Retail has a very short horizon. We must remain careful to limit the areas of retailing in Cranberry. We look toward industries that are sustainable. That’s why office parks that attract and retain the brightest future ‘knowledge workers’ are important to us. You’ll see a lot of high quality office parks housing some of the major corporations, but they also house smaller firms that might be upstarts of entrepreneurs and promising technology-driven firms. These are very important, too.

Our board of supervisors focuses on and firmly believes in creating an environment in which people will want to live and raise their families. Companies and corporations will locate in places where their employees really want to live. It’s a synergy that’s created by building a quality community. Everything else will flow after that, including business growth.

NHMM: Obviously, continued economic development of any sort takes up space. Does Cranberry have a lot of space left for this growth to continue?

Andree: We do. We still have about 40 percent of land that’s undeveloped. This, however, might be a good place to state what we don’t do. We carefully plan, but sometimes people think that we do special things for businesses, including paying businesses in some way to come here. We don’t do tax incentives or financing. It costs to develop in Cranberry. If you want to buy land here, you have to do your own improvements. Developers build their own infrastructures to support their businesses, versus the taxpayers paying for it. That keeps taxes low and helps us stay sustainable until at least 2030.

NHMM: Speaking of taxes, is the tax rate in Butler County compared to Allegheny County a big draw for Cranberry?

Andree: There’s not that much difference, and we believe that it’s not the taxes that drive a community—it’s the quality of life and the investments that people are bringing here.

NHMM: Part of Cranberry’s charm has been the ability to get away from the big city, to enjoy more green space. Is that picture changing?

Andree: The challenge sometimes comes from farmers and other landowners. We can’t prohibit someone from selling their land if they so choose. That’s their right. So, as the area becomes less rural, we do try to incorporate into our growth the characteristics of plenty of green space, and we require a significant amount of open space in development, including landscaping with plenty of trees, for example.

NHMM: Just within the last 30 years, the population of Cranberry has more than doubled from about 14,000 to 30,000 people. What’s next? Annexing a neighboring town?

Andree: We still have plenty of room. We’re very careful to plan for infrastructure. We are constantly improving our roadways, our water and sewer systems, our parks and libraries, so we’ve been very careful to build our infrastructure over that time, including both the physical and social infrastructure. In so many ways, we’re constantly aiming to improve the quality of life. We’re also becoming a younger community, especially in the last 10 years. Our average age has dropped to 34 years old, and that’s a good sign.

NHMM: Is there a secret you can share?

Andree: Not really, because it’s no secret that our board of supervisors will continue to do its careful and deliberate planning and monitoring, and our communications with residents will continue through staying in touch. We’ll keep going forward by always maintaining the vision of what is in the best interest of the community, now and down the road. And that promising road stretches to at least 2030.

For more information, visit the official Cranberry website at www.twp.cranberry.pa.us/. You can also call the township at 724-776-4806 or write Cranberry Township, 2525 Rochester Road, Suite 400,
Cranberry Township, PA 16066-6499.