In April, MSA – the Mine Safety Appliances Company – requested approval from Cranberry’s Board of Supervisors to expand several parking lots adjacent to its Cranberry Woods Drive plant and laboratory. Normally, a modest expansion of parking space is no big deal for fast-growing Cranberry. But this is different: the reason for expanding its parking space is to accommodate the consolidation of 300 employees currently based at MSA’s office in O’Hara Township with approximately 500 other staff members already housed in Cranberry Woods. As a result, Cranberry Township has emerged as the company’s corporate as well as research headquarters.
Work on adapting some of the plant’s manufacturing space into offices is currently underway, but its production of thermal imaging cameras as well as certain special instrumentation will continue at the Cranberry Woods site, which will become known as MSA Corporate Center.
Mine Safety Appliances was founded nearly 100 years ago. Its workforce now includes more than 5,000 worldwide. Following the company’s purchase of the 327-acre Cranberry Woods property in the early 1980s as a location for its laboratory and instrument plant, the company worked with Township officials to transform its site into a world-class office park designed to host the knowledge-based industries of the 21st century. Today, Cranberry Woods includes almost 1.5 million square feet of Class A office and research space, with even more on the way.