OBSERVER Photo by Mary Heyl On Tuesday, the Industrial Development Agency board heard updates on the NRG Power Plant Redevelopment Alternatives and Feasibility Study.

Plans are moving forward for the repurposing of the shuttered NRG plant. Despite the fact that NRG decided not to repower the Dunkirk facility, the company is interested in partnering with Dunkirk and Chautauqua County to ensure the immense space becomes usable once again.

On Tuesday, the County of Chautauqua Industrial Development Agency held their monthly meeting at the Fredonia Technology Incubator. Mark Geise, IDA chief executive officer, was pleased to share an update on the NRG Power Plant Redevelopment Alternatives and Feasibility Study.

The $100,000 study was funded by the IDA, with help from the Appalachian Regional Commission’s power alternatives program. “This is funding that’s available to helping communities that have been negatively affected by coal plant closures,” Geise explained. In February, the ARC awarded a $60,000 grant to the city of Dunkirk for the study, which recently involved a request for proposals for the NRG plant.

“We got back 10 proposals, and they’re all good,” Geise told board members. “We’re going to be meeting this Thursday to talk through them. We’re rating them all, looking at past experience and team members.”

Geise explained that many of the proposals have multiple consultants, including NRG experts, Brownfield Opportunity Grant experts, demolition and environmental experts and more.

“We’ll probably choose the top three and then invite them in for interviews and talk it through,” said Geise. “…We hope to — probably in the next month or two — choose one of these consultants and then get to work on a plan.”

Michael Metzger, board chairman, asked Geise about the groups that have partnered together for the study. Geise explained that the city of Dunkirk and Chautauqua County are leading the study, and that law firm Phillips Lytle and Mark Odell, district 7 county legislator and chairman of the county’s economic development committee, have contributed their expertise and support.

Geise is optimistic about NRG’s planned involvement, too “We actually had a meeting with NRG in Jamestown and sat down with them,” Geise explained. “They went through this whole process with another power plant…They did a feasibility study, and they really conveyed to us that they really want to be partners on this thing. They want to be at the table.”