In honor of AIA Pittsburgh’s 125th anniversary, we are highlighting a longtime Allied Member and partner that is celebrating a 125th anniversary of their own: Epic Metals. 125 years after the original construction, Epic Metals is working to make its Manufacturing Plant fully solar-powered. Read about the plans for the building below.
By David Landis, Epic Metals
125 years ago, in 1899, construction began on the Epic Metals manufacturing building, originally built in Rankin as a street car barn for the Pittsburgh Railway Company. The building was purchased by Epic Metals in 1968 and for many years it served as the company’s only office, in addition to being a manufacturing plant. At the time Epic Metals made the purchase, the building had no insulation, dirt floors in the street car storage area, a boxing ring on the second floor, and an elevator that was operated by hand pulled ropes, pulleys, and weights that is no longer used. Over the years Epic Metals has repurposed the space by adding concrete floors in the manufacturing area, insulating the roof, and adding overhead cranes.
In 2023 Epic Metals replaced the cupola roofing with a modern steel standing seam roof and installed solar panels on the cupola. A study was recently completed for adding solar panels to the balance of the roofing. When completed, the building’s solar panels could generate enough solar energy to power the building for the majority of the year, excluding the shortest sunlight months of the winter. Current plans are to replace sections of the roofing and to add solar panels to each area, with a goal of replacing all of the roofing and adding all of the solar panels by 2030.
Epic Metals manufacturers architectural roof, floor deck ceiling systems, and sun screens from this building, which was constructed in the same year that the Pittsburgh Chapter of the AIA was founded.