Officials in Lordstown – already home to a large General Motors complex -- are looking forward to nearly $1 billion in new projects this month.
Groundbreaking for the Lordstown Energy Center is scheduled for today at 1 p.m. About 500 people will be needed to build the $890 million natural gas plant, which is slated to be open in two years and will be run by a division of FirstEnergy.
Lordstown Mayor Arno Hill says the new facility can provide energy for up to 800,000 homes.
“It’s actually a co-gen plant: It also has some steam turbines, too, and it can go up to 940 megawatts.”
Later this month, on June 15, Hill will also be cutting the ribbon on a $100 million aluminum smelting plant. The facility, owned by Canada’s Matalco Company, has already sold out its entire 2016 production of about 90 million pounds of aluminum billet.
Hill says Lordstown has been preparing for the new developments for some time.
“A lot of places don’t have water. A lot of places don’t have natural gas. I mean, we’ve got it all: we’ve got rail. We’ve got electric lines. You’ve got to sell what you naturally have to sell. And that seems to be working.”
Construction is also underway on the Lordstown Logistics Center, a two-million square foot industrial park which developers hope will attract auto-plant suppliers to complement the nearby General Motors plant.
