Entrepreneurial Training

North Side Industrial Development Company d/b/a Riverside Center for Innovation is a nonprofit economic development organization that offers Innovative Strategies, a multitude of business-oriented services, one of which is our very successful brownfields assessment program.  NSIDC is the largest recipient agency of the EPA Region III Brownfield Assessment with over $6 million grant funds that leveraged over $1 billion economic impact in private development throughout the region.     

One of the most successful Innovative Strategies programs is the Rivers Towns Coalition program that works with property owners and community leaders to gain access to brownfields hazardous and petroleum sites.  RCI works closely with owners and potential developers to perform assessments so the sites can be redeveloped into valuable, usable land.  Several of the River Towns Coalition communities include the following municipalities:  Etna, Shaler, Sharpsburg, Millvale, McKees Rocks, Neville Island, Stowe Township, City of Pittsburgh, City of McKeesport, City of Clairton, City of Duquesne, East Pittsburgh along with many other LMI communities.  Many of these communities have benefited from development projects that are now transforming blighted neighborhoods into communities of choice resulting in a reduction in poverty with family sustainable jobs and better quality of life. 

For more on the brownfield assessment program, Juan Garrett at [email protected].