Energy Freedom Pioneers expected to buy lot
Saturday, May 05, 2007
By ROBERT LINNEHAN
Staff Writer


OLDMANS TWP. The township's 47-acre portion of Camp Pedricktown is gearing up to welcome a new tenant.

After actively trying to sell its plot of the 85-acre former Army base since December of 2006, Mayor Harry Moore said the township is fully expecting to sell its section to Energy Freedom Pioneers, a locally-based Pedricktown company.

According to company President Brian Blair, Energy Freedom Pioneers specializes in creating and operating sustainable platforms for alternative energy manufacturers to reduce engineering, marketing, and commercialization costs.

Blair said the company plans to invest $6 million into its Camp Pedricktown plan, which consists of three specific phases.

The first phase, Blair said, will take nearly 14 months and will see the company rehabilitating nine dilapidated buildings at the Camp Pedricktown site.

"We originally pondered leveling these buildings, but after our engineers carefully inspected them, we found the buildings to be structurally sound," he said. "We're going to clean up the site and renovate the buildings, make them like new. We'll be doing this fairly quickly."

The second phase will consist of the company rehabilitating the existing tenant's buildings as a way to keep them at the site. Blair said the company will be extremely accommodating to the current tenants and will attempt to keep each of them in their current buildings

The third phase, and the lifeblood of the entire plan, will be to bring in alternative energy tenants to the improved site. Blair said the vast majority of the site will be devoted to manufacturing alternative energy harvesters, such as solar panels, windprops, and bio-diesel converters. A centralized manufacturing building will be located at the center of the site, and will be shared by each tenant.

"We're already talking with alternative energy suppliers from all over the world to relocate or set up new sites in Oldmans Township," he said. "This will definitely stimulate the economy of Oldmans Township, because we're going to be creating about 250 jobs and we want to hire locally."

Also, in five years, the company hopes to start producing limited quantities of bio-diesel on the site, using locally grown corn as the main ingredient.

"We plan to educate the community in alternative energy forms," he said. "We want to form partnerships with the local college's to get students interested in this fast growing technology. We truly foresee alternative energy becoming the number one energy source in the nation in the near future."

Moore shared Blair's optimism, and said the new company will bring some much needed ratables into the township.

"Each building they rent out will be a ratable for us," he said. "It will certainly be a beneficial organization for our township. It will also be a clean and attractive addition to our community."

Energy Freedom Pioneers's plan for the Camp Pedricktown site are available on the company's Web site at www.energyfreedompioneers.com.

© 2007 Today's Sunbeam. Used with permission.