This week’s announcement of the merger between Kraft Foods and Heinz has made Pittsburgh civic leaders a bit nervous, and for good reason. After watching what 3G Capital did to slash overhead with its acquisition of Heinz 19 months ago, leaders should expect significant executive layoffs and reorganization to consolidate operations. While that should be better news for Pittsburgh than Chicago – where Kraft has an impressive corporate campus – there is one significant factor that could make a higher-cost headquarters in Chicago more desirable: air travel.

As the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, Chicago has dozens of direct flights to destinations around the world daily, including 3G’s home country of Brazil. Pittsburgh’s only current year-round international flight is to Toronto. The disparity of serving 216 cities daily versus 35 from PIT, gives Chicago the kind of edge that the Allegheny County Airport Authority has been fighting to regain after USAirways reneged on its promise to maintain its flights.

Let’s hope that lower costs for commercial space and much lower costs of living win the day because it seems unlikely that 3G will maintain “co-headquarters” for very long.

Following up on some recent projects of interest, Burchick Construction was awarded the contract for the Victoria Street parking garage by UPMC, a $9 million structural renovation. Google selected Perkins Eastman for the design of its interior fit-out in the Bakery 2.0 office building. Gurtner Construction was awarded the general trades portion of the new $7 million Ross Township public works garage complex. Rycon Construction was the low bidder on the Cathedral of Learning Suite 910 renovation at $419,000, beating out TEDCO at $448,000 and A. Martini & Co. at $461,800.

Massaro CM Services is in the process of putting three North Allegheny schools out to bid as part of the $22 million program to upgrade the Marshall Middle and Elementary School, and the Bradford Woods School. The projects are due April 9, 14 and 17. In Ohio, the new $30 million Canton South High School is out to bid.

The civic leaders have been telling the public for more than 2 years that the real payoff from having multiple ethylene production facilities – ethane crackers – was in the downstream manufacturing that would arise. Today, GE announced what had been alluded to in an earlier blog post last week – a new plant in Pittsburgh.

The company acquired a site in Chapman Westport, along Rte. 576 in Findlay Twp. with the intention of building a 180,000 sq. ft. advanced manufacturing facility. GE will get proposals from three development teams, including Chapman Properties, Al Neyer & Clayco, to build the plant. The project will be a crunch, with work starting in March if GE gets its way. GE’s announcement was a little vague about the building’s purpose but I was told last week that the plant would manufacture resins, one of the key ingredients to the plastics recipe. (As a reminder, ethylene is the mother feedstock of plastics).

Although there has been no confirmation, Ensinger Plastics has reportedly chosen a site for a new facility, a plant of more than 250,000 sq. ft.

Perhaps Shell wasn’t the only company waiting for the dust to settle before sharing its plans with the region.

The Ellwood City Ledger earlier this week reported some specifics about the early work at the Shell site that buildingpittsburgh alluded to last week. The paper listed Trumbull Energy Services as having won a contract for earthwork. The successful contractor is actually a joint venture between Trumbull and Mascaro Construction is expected to land significant pieces of the site preparation.