[14][8] In a press release, Shell stated that 70% of polyethylene customers in North America are within a 700-mile (1,100 km) radius of Pittsburgh and that the location would be more cost-effective for its customers than at existing facilities along the Gulf Coast, which unlike North Central Appalachia are susceptible to the Atlantic hurricane season.

[5] In 2015, Shell began preparing the site for future construction, moving 7.2 million cubic yards of dirt, building new bridges and a new rail line, and completing a total relocation of PA Route 18.

[16] On September 25, 2018 in a conference with the Wall Street Journal, Ben van Beurden, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, said that the project is both within budget and ahead of schedule.

[17] The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection approved two permits for a 97 miles (156 km)-long pipeline that will lead to the cracker plant on December 20, 2018.

[14] It could expand neighboring Center Township, which has already seen a hotel construction boom prior to the plant's site selection, as well keep the dwindling Beaver Valley Mall afloat.

[25] In 2018 Mount Airy Casinos won the licensing to build a satellite casino just 12 miles (19 km) north of the cracker plant, although that plan was rejected by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board in November 2019 [26] The plant could become a factor spurring long-delayed highway expansion projects.

The Southern Beltway, which had already confirmed would be extending its second leg in 2020 from U.S. Route 22 to Interstate 79, moved the project up a year solely as a result of the proposed plant.

[27] In late 2015, a group of environmentalists submitted an appeal to Pennsylvania's Environmental Hearing Board to challenge the air quality permit that was granted for the proposed plant; the group argued that the state should have required stricter monitoring requirements for fugitive pollutant emissions from the plant.

One house was destroyed, other homes and vehicles were damaged, power lines were downed, and roads were closed; no one was injured.

[31] Morgantown, West Virginia country-folk musician Charles Wesley Godwin wrote his song "Cranes of Potter" about the hypothetical backstory of the woman whose buried bones were found during excavation for the complex, which he saw driving from West Virginia to his studio in Pennsylvania.