The biggest business news from Butler County in 2025
Butler County is home to businesses of all sizes, across many industries which help shape the communities they are in.
In 2025, Butler County saw businesses come and go, while also seeing policy changes impact their day-to-day operations.
An ongoing topic that rippled through 2025 and will linger into the future was the tariffs President Donald Trump implemented, aimed to bring back more manufacturing companies and jobs to the United States from overseas.
The move brought mixed feelings among industry leaders, who said material prices started going up; but in the end, tariffs did begin bringing more business to American manufacturers toward the end of the year according to local manufacturers.
Sticking to manufacturing, in January, a federal lawsuit was filed by Japan based Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel, alleging Cleveland-Cliffs, its CEO and the president of the United Steelworkers International engaged in an anticompetitive conspiracy to prompt U.S. Steel to merge with Cleveland-Cliffs.
U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel announced June 18 they finalized their partnership, but the deal did not come without some hurdles. Former President Joe Biden blocked the deal in January, citing national security concerns, but it was later approved by Trump in May.
The lawsuit was then dismissed in September.
Also in January, the business community lost Robert Leroy Hunter, the former owner of Hunter Truck, who died at the age of 83.
Known by his friends and family as Bob, he and his brother Harry Hunter helped grow Hunter Truck into one of the largest truck dealerships in the United States after the business was founded by their father in 1938.
Later in the month, New York-based grocery chain Wegmans announced it will be opening a store located on Cool Springs Drive in the Cranberry Springs development near the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.
Wegmans said it will be situated on 13 acres with about 115,000 square feet of storefront space. A construction timeline is still being worked out.
Later in February, the Butler Big Lots at 190 Alameda Plaza closed its doors for the final time.
Big Lots filed for bankruptcy in September 2024 and had 1,392 stores at the beginning of 2024.
Then in March, a long-standing Butler County hotel, bar and restaurant announced it was closing its doors.
Hotel Saxonburg was founded in 1832 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. The hotel was also previously known as The Central Hotel and The Laune House.
On a happier note, Bear Run Campground, 184 Badger Hill Road in Muddy Creek Township, celebrated 50 years in business this year.
Bear Run Campground was opened by the parents of current owner Craig Wehr, Bob and June Wehr, in 1975.
In May, all seven Rite Aid locations in Butler County began to close as the pharmacy chain wanted to cut back operations after seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The Butler city location at 139 S. Main St. was one of the first to go, but the building found a new tenant in Dollar General, which opened in November.
While the Lyndora Hotel closed in Sept. 2023, the property was thrown a lifeline in May when Joe Gray, with Ashlar Architecture & Engineering of Butler, said he purchased the former Lyndora Hotel building at 1 Main St. for $249,000 with hopes of renovating it so it is suitable for a new tenant, or even more than one.
The building was constructed in 1908, but the foundation is “solid” Gray said. However, some minor improvements are going to be needed to make it suitable for any tenant.
In July, Cranberry Township based MSA Safety bought the office building property next to its Cranberry Woods campus at 400 Bertha Lamme Drive for $20 million.
According to Mark Deasy, director of public relations and corporate communications, the purchase of the 118,000-square-foot building is a “strategic investment” in MSA’s future.
In October, A multibillion dollar merger was announced between Essential Utilities and American Water in what will create a utilities conglomerate worth $63 billion.
Essential Utilities owns Peoples Natural Gas, while Pennsylvania American Water is a subsidiary of American Water, one of the largest water utilities in the country.
Another partnership also took place in October when Cranberry Township-based Westinghouse Electric Company entered a partnership with the United States government aimed to “accelerate the deployment of nuclear power” within the U.S., according to a release from the company.
The partnership will deploy Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactors, with each two-unit site creating or sustaining roughly 45,000 manufacturing and engineering jobs in 43 states, with roughly 100,000 construction jobs.
Then in mid-November, Cleveland-Cliffs presented a $195 million upgrade plan for the current Butler Works facility’s steel processing line.
At a Butler Township Planning Commission meeting on Dec. 2, commissioners ultimately tabled the land development application until further conversations can be had. The project’s intended operational date is set for July 2028.
Lastly, West Virginia University Health System announced it will invest $800 million to modernize Independence Health System after the Western Pennsylvania system becomes a part of the sizable West Virginia system next year.
The health systems will operate under the WVU Medicine brand. The transaction is planned for fall 2026, subject to bondholder consent and state and federal regulatory reviews.
