Westinghouse Arts Academy ready for long-awaited opening of the 'Castle'

The next chapter in the storied history of the ornate Westinghouse Air Brake General Office in Wilmerding is about to be written.

On Thursday morning, members of the public and the media were invited into the stately, 1890 Frederick J. Osterling-designed Romanesque/Revival structure from which George Westinghouse once directed his worldwide industrial empire. It’s about to become home to the rapidly expanding next-door Westinghouse Arts Academy, a public charter school for grades 9 through 12.

After years of painstaking work, the once crumbling building that seemed destined for the wrecking ball has been partly restored and appears ready to become the beehive of arts education the project’s leaders — Joe Lawrence, managing partner of developer Westinghouse Castle, LP; and Richard Fosbrink, chief executive officer of the Westinghouse Arts Academy – had envisioned.

The first two floors of the building are now opening for business, filled with a dance studio, pottery studio, a makerspace with 3-D printers, a screen printing press, a digital media/film and TV production studio, and a program and events center, among other things. Only the furniture is missing due to supply chain issues lingering from the pandemic.

Within the next two weeks, the school’s first students, high school seniors, will be ushered into the building. Other students from lower grades will gradually be brought in as well.

Bigger plans are in the works.

“I just hope that the printing press is in and the kilns (a type of oven used for making pottery ) are in,” Fosbrink said. “Those have been the two big holdups. I know that the green screen stuff (for the digital media studio) is coming in next week. Some furniture has started to arrive but it has to be assembled. With a project this big, as you can imagine, it’s coming right down to the end.”

Fosbrink said they had wanted to have everything done before the end of the 2022 calendar year but the shipping delays complicated things.

But what’s already in place is impressive, including a first-floor state-of-the-art kitchen for students in the culinary arts program. It features a pizza oven, soup kettles and deep fryers for meals to be made from scratch.

Students leading visitors on tours through the building Thursday pointed out the original crown molding that remains in place amid the new drywall and linoleum floors. The students seemed less interested in that than in what’s coming together in the digital media/film and TV production studio.

“I’m actually a digital media student so I’m very excited about this,” Danica Hickman, 15, a sophomore from McKeesport said as she led visitors into the digital media studio. “We’re going to take students’ visions and create things here.”

Many of the students have expressed an interest in fashion design and there is an area set aside for creating costumes for stage productions that includes a genuine George Westinghouse sewing machine.

Sophomore Sawyer Kilgour, 15, of Forest Hills, said the Westinghouse Arts Academy’s expansion into the Castle is a welcome development because the school needs much more room to grow.

“We need more classroom space,” Kilgour said. “Right now we have a school of about 400 students. Our goal is to have around 1,000, which we currently do not have the facilities for. That’s why we’re expanding. This (building) has about five floors.”

Turtle Creek Valley Arts, a community non-profit, leases the building to Westinghouse Arts Academy. Eventually, the facility will be home to after-school art programs for members of the community.

“In many ways, this building represents the community and its resilience,” Fosbrink said. “Our grand opening marks the end of just one phase of construction, but I feel like it’s also the beginning of a new era of excitement and growth for the community as well.”

A Saturday night gala celebrating the renovated Westinghouse Castle will start at 5:30 p.m. with tours of the Castle including work from all departments and a student-designed fashion show. At 7:30 there will be performances by the students in the auditorium.

Themed hors d’oeuvres and dessert will be served. General admission tickets are $55 per person or $30 for the 7:30 performance only.