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Thursday, March 26, 2026
GIBSON CITY — The Gibson City Plan Commission will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 21, at City Hall, 101 E. 8th St., to consider a petition for a special-use permit allowing for the construction and operation of a 2.25-megawatt solar farm on farmland just northeast of the city.
The petitioners are Larry and Cheryl Crews of Champaign, who own the agriculturally zoned land at Ford County Road 600 East and Illinois 54 in Drummer Township and are represented by Jason Grissom of IL Solar Ford Project1 LLC.
The firm’s San Francisco address, as listed in the Feb. 17 permit application, is also the headquarters of ForeFront Power, where Grissom is employed as director of development. According to its website, ForeFront Power is a developer of commercial and industrial-scale solar energy and battery storage projects. It is a subsidiary of Mitsui & Co. Ltd. and operates under Mitsui’s North American investment arm, MyPower Corp.
A map shows where a 2.25-megawatt solar farm is proposed to be built on farmland just northeast of Gibson City.
A ForeFront Power-generated map of the proposed Ford County project was attached to the permit application, showing its proposed location on a 23.42-acre triangular parcel of land to the southeast of Illinois 54. The project would involve solar panels, solar racking, inverters and an access driveway, according to the application.
The city’s plan commission is expected to issue a recommendation for consideration by the city council on whether to approve the permit. The commission is chaired by Chase McCall and also includes Chris Cornish, Donna Boundy, Terry Hutchcraft, David Crow, Mike Allen, Betsy Hammitt, Mike Perkins and Kevin Askew, according to the city’s website.
Because the city has zoning authority within 1 1/2 miles of its corporate limits, the project will not go before the Ford County Zoning Board of Appeals, said the county’s zoning administrator, Brandon Magers.
That will be a notable change from the county’s past practices. Last December, for example, the county’s ZBA was preparing to hold a public hearing — only to end up canceling it — for special-use permits requested for two proposed 5-megawatt commercial solar farms just north of Gibson City. The two projects, known as Goldenrod East LLC and Goldenrod West LLC, were to be built on former Railside Golf Course property under the project proposed by JAS Power LLC, a subsidiary of Greenvolt LLC.
Earlier, the county’s ZBA also considered a special-use permit for Arlington, Va.-based Earthrise Energy’s 135-megawatt solar farm currently being built 1 1/2 miles northwest of Gibson City in Drummer Township — the county’s first solar farm.
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