Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) announced Monday that this week will mark the start of its “second campus master plan project.” The project, the installation of a new geothermal exchange system on NMC’s main campus, will ultimately power NMC’s key main buildings with renewable energy.

NMC’s Board of Trustees voted in February to allocate $5 million from the recent sale of the Boardman Lake Campus toward the long-gestating geothermal project. The college’s Timothy J. Nelson Innovation Center has been powered by geothermal energy since it opened, but the NMC has been wanting for years to power five other campus buildings – Scholars Hall, the Osterlin Building, the Tanis Building, the Biderman Building, and the Health & Science building – with geothermal. The system will replace NMC’s existing boiler power plant, which has been operating for more than 50 years and is at the end of its usable life.

“When completed next year, the $20-million project will reduce NMC’s natural gas consumption by 94 percent and carbon emissions by 96 percent,” the college reported in a Facebook post announcing the start of construction on the geothermal project. NMC leaders have previously indicated that, thanks to energy savings, the geothermal project could pay for itself within 25-30 years.

During construction, visitors can expect “some detours” around campus, along with the closure of NMC’s Cherry parking lot.

The geothermal plant is the second major project NMC is checking off the list from its campus master plan, which was unveiled in 2024. The first project, an expansion to the college’s aviation hangar, was completed last fall.