MATTOON - City Administrator Alan Gilmore was answering the phone and opening e-mails at a frantic pace 24 hours after the FutureGen announcement.

"I've had double or three times the calls I usually get. And there are the e-mails. This is already having an impact here," Gilmore said Wednesday afternoon.

Mattoon Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Mary Wetzel said the Chamber's Web site has had thousands of hits from across the country, and even internationally. There have been phone calls and visitors to the Chamber office.

"Our Webmaster said the site is absolutely going crazy," Wetzel said Wednesday afternoon." It started as soon as 9:24 a.m. Tuesday. We're getting all kinds of calls, too. Many are people from the Champaign market.

"I'm not surprised we're getting interest, but I didn't expect it would be this much."

Welcome to being on the global map from Bristol to Bangkok. With the world learning how to say "Mattoon," it is not surprising in this information age that people are checking in to say "hello" as well.

The hope of local officials is that some of those Web site browsers and callers will bring in future commerce.

Experts have predicted related industries will come to Mattoon as well and that means the city might direct them to the FutureGen neighborhood.

"We have already listed the FutureGen corridor for industrial use. So we might discourage residential development in the immediate area of FutureGen," Owen said.

"People need to understand FutureGen will not be the only thing going on out there. So it might make sense to add another overpass for the railroad on that end of town," Owen said.

There are many ways in which FutureGen will put a global spotlight onto Mattoon. One way is 3,000 to 5,000 visitors expected to tour the plant each year. That creates about $30,000 in hotel-tax revenues for the city, based on a 5 percent tax rate.

"And you're going to have a rollover on meals, gas and rentals," Mattoon Public Works Director David Wortman said.