A $60 million electrical substation near the Nissan plant will make an industrial megasite much more attractive, economic development officials are saying.
Located at Highway 22 and Nissan Parkway the 325-acre site owned by the Madison County Economic Development Authority will be ready for big business.
“From an economic standpoint, there’s a lot rolled into this,” MCEDA Executive Director Joseph Deason said
Deason said around 325 acres were originally purchased for the megasite with an option to purchase another 600 acres.
Deason feels this project will do a lot for future economic development and will attract a lot of very big potential businesses.
“This will provide the opportunity for many jobs and investments in the region,” he said. “We work a lot of jobs, and I envision us working with and supplying
power to technology companies, warehouse distributions, large data centers, advanced manufacturers, engineers, and legal companies.”
MCEDA has been closely working with Entergy on the substation that will be built on the site. Ed Gardner, director of economic and business development
for Entergy, sees a lot of promise. Entergy plans to break ground in December.
“There’s no one in the state who we serve that goes up to 80 mega-watts,” Gardner said. “That right there makes this one of the most capable sites in our
service territory from an electrical standpoint.”
Gardner said these types of projects take a lot of time, usually two or three years, and a lot of companies don’t have that kind of time.
“These days, company decision timeframes are getting shorter and shorter,” he said. “Doing this will increase our reliability and will allow us to grow.
When we experience this growth, it’ll allow us to do even more projects. A big factor is that we’re right across the road from a very reliable company,
which is Nissan. What we have here is critical for supplying reliable manufacturers with a huge supply of power.”
Gardner is looking forward to this expansion and believes it’ll lead to some really great things for the county.
On Monday, supervisors approved a dimensional variance for buildings located at the megasite that eliminated a low maximum height.
This Article is reprinted from the Madison County Journal written by John Lee.
