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Long Anticipated Indeck Niles Energy Ctr Breaks Ground Next Week

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A day that ended up being nearly 20-years in the making will finally arrive next week when Indeck Energy Services celebrates the groundbreaking on a long-proposed $1.1-billion natural gas power plant in Niles.

Congressman Fred Upton announced today that he will take part in the long overdue groundbreaking activities at 2200 Progressive Drive in Niles on Wednesday, September 4th at 10am.

Back in March the Niles City Council gave the nod for the sale of additional acreage to Indeck helping to finally pave the way for construction to start on a project that has been on the front burner, the back burner, side burners and more for years.

The major construction project alone will create more than 500 new jobs in Southwest Michigan after Niles council members approved the sale last spring of an extra 166 acres in the Niles Industrial Park to help clear the way for the project to finally gain some traction.

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The new Indeck Niles Energy Center will be a next generation, state-of-the-art energy center fueled by clean natural gas. Indeck Niles will be a 1,085 megawatt combined-cycle power plant. On average, that amount of generation is enough to power 700,000 homes and businesses.

In addition to the 500 construction jobs expected to be generated by the development of the center, the space will provide jobs to 21 highly-skilled, high-paying operations and maintenance workers when the plant is complete.

In addition to Upton, the ceremonies will also include Dr. Young Sok Kim who serves as the Korean Consulate General in Chicago, Niles Mayor Nick Shelton, Former Michigan State Senator John Proos, former Niles Mayor Mike McCauslin, and various representatives from Indeck Energy, the Korean Southern Power Company, major equipment supplier General Electric, and plant construction contractor Kiewit.

Estimates voiced earlier this year indicated that construction of the billion dollar plant will likely take some three years, with hopes of going operational in the spring of the year 2022.

Indeck corporate officials first approached the Niles community with plans to build a power plant in the city way back in the year 2000, but ended up mothballing those plans when soaring prices for natural gas proved the project to be unfeasible from a financial point of view.

The photo accompanying this story on Moody on the Market is for illustration purposes only and shows a Michigan co-generation facility with six 250k Indeck Boilers, and is not intended to depict what the new facility in Niles will look like in any manner.