Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Power Plant Coming to Printers Row Area?

We received two emails yesterday from concerned residents questioning recent letters they received from Midwest Generation:
Hi Sloopin,
I came home today to a letter from Midwest Energy stating they are building a power plant at Harrison and Wells. See attached copy of the letter. Any information on this? I certainly don't recall a public hearing for anything on that land other than a parking lot to the north of River City.
Thanks!!


Here is the second, which talks about a drawing with two smoke stacks:
I live at Financial and Polk and received a very disturbing (and poorly written) letter today - that Edison International's Midwest Generation (a subsidiary) has bought the vacant lot at the corner of Wells and Harrison - and they are breaking ground on a new generation station - coal powered - with 2 smoke stacks (according to the drawing). Now, we get letters all the time when developers decide they want to do add a parking lot, or change from 2 condo towers to 1 - but we get nothing about a power generator (like the one in Pilsen) until it's a done deal?? Had you guys heard about this? Have other sloopers gotten the same letter? And is there anything we can do about it??


It appears that these letters are just coming out now, but this is new news to us (and we didn't receive the letters presumably because we don't live that close to the site).

Anyone else get the letter or have any background on this new power plant that's coming to the neighborhood?

As you may or may not recall, around the same time last year there was a big fuss from some residents about a BMX tournament coming to this lot. Our guess is that most residents would rather have that than a power plant.

UPDATE, just received this pamphlet from a reader:
(Hat tip: LB & BC!)