First U.S. Additive Manufacturing ‘Neighborhood’ Unveiled at PIT

Pittsburgh is known for building things. Now, Pittsburgh International Airport is building the future of additive manufacturing.

On Friday, airport and Allegheny County officials debuted Neighborhood 91, the first development of the Pittsburgh Airport Innovation Campus, a 195-acre business park on airport property devoted to the burgeoning industry of additive manufacturing (AM), the term used for seven specific processes, including 3-D printing, that create three-dimensional objects from a digital file.

Neighborhood 91 will be the first site in the world to contain every element of the AM supply chain, from design to production and distribution. Just as neighbors borrow tools from each other, companies in Neighborhood 91 will share infrastructural efficiencies and resources, including a communal supply of powder materials, such as stainless steel and aluminum, used in the additive manufacturing process.

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The site’s first tenant will be Arencibia, an industrial gas management firm that invented a method to recycle 95 percent of the gas used in AM production, creating more efficiencies and saving money for companies.

Arencibia will anchor a production ecosystem that will include powder, parts, post-production, testing and analysis.

“It’s a great example of when the economies of scale work on both ends. By having a central plant where we process everyone’s gas, our economies of scale are better,” said company president Joe Arencibia. “And then likewise, smaller additive manufacturing producers who maybe would have normally been too small to take advantage of the gas we recycle, now can participate as a group in a net