Royal Dutch Shell is on track to revitalize the Rust Belt by building the first major factory in the region since 1992. The massive polyethylene plastics plant being constructed along the Ohio River 30 miles outside of Pittsburgh will cover a whopping 386 acres. The estimated price tag of $6 to $10 billion (with a $1.6 billion package in reduced taxes over a 25-year period granted to Shell by the state of Pennsylvania) makes the factory one of the largest industrial projects ever developed in the area, and the grandiose scale and promise of the project is already making waves of positive change in the local real estate market. Thanks to the promise of jobs in a long-stagnant workforce to be created once the factory is completed, as well as the massive amount of labor needed to create the necessary infrastructure in the meantime, housing construction in the region […]