Officials look to market shuttered Westmoreland test track

Westmoreland County officials will continue to pursue development of a $20 million test track facility despite the shuttering of Argo AI, a marquee tenant at the East Huntingdon site.

“There’s a strong demand for test track space, and I’m pretty confident we will be able to back-fill this facility with another company in that space,” Regional Industrial Development Corp. President Don Smith said.

The announcement that Argo AI will close means Westmoreland County has a 30-acre, closed-circuit test track ready for use. The county will be marketing Argo’s autonomous vehicle test facility and research space near New Stanton, officials said.

The 2,800-square-foot facility at the RIDC Westmoreland Innovation Center in East Huntingdon, near Interstate 70 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, has, since 2018, served as Argo AI’s research and testing facility in Pennsylvania.

The company, backed by investments from Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG, was headquartered in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. Company officials said Argo AI will be folded into the automakers’ other divisions.

“We really don’t know all the details yet, but obviously this is not good for the region,” RIDC President Don Smith said.

Argo AI occupied a portion of the industrial park that also is home to the Westmoreland County Community College Advanced Technology Center and site of a proposed $20 million PennDOT project to build a 3-mile autonomous vehicle test track that, once completed, will be available to private companies to rent.

Officials said Argo AI’s shuttering is not expected impact the state project.

Autonomous vehicle testing and development has been a growing industry in Western Pennsylvania. In recent years, it created more than 6,300 jobs and 8,600 in indirect positions in the region that generated $651 million in labor income and nearly $35 million in state and local tax revenue, according to a study published by the RIDC.

Its presence in Westmoreland County, at a site that once served as a manufacturing home to automakers Chrysler and Volkswagen and later where Sony Corp. made televisions, has in recent years been reinvented as a multi-use industrial park.

Westmoreland County Planning Director Jason Rigone said local officials were surprised by Argo AI’s closing and had no warning of the decision.

Rigone said the company’s closing will be a loss for the county but suggested it won’t have a major impact on the local economy.

“These type of assets are in short supply. I expect there to be an opportunity to market it to another company and for the autonomous vehicle industry to continue to have a presence here,” Rigone said.