General Motors plans to build the next generation of its four-cylinder Ecotec engines in Spring Hill, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The report, published late Monday on the newspaper’s website, cites a person familiar with the matter as saying GM plans to announce the news as soon as Friday.

The Spring Hill plant builds four-cylinder engines for the Chevrolet Equinox and Malibu, GMC Terrain and Buick LaCrosse. According to the Free Press, GM currently produces Ecotecs in Tonawanda, N.Y. Production in Spring Hill likely will start in early 2013, the source said.

The Tonawanda plant currently builds two versions of the Ecotec engine, the 2.2-liter used in the Chevrolet Cobalt and HHR and a 2.4-liter used in the Chevrolet Malibu.

In February, GM announced it would invest more than $494 million and create about 550 jobs in three U.S. engine plants to product the next-generation Ecotec, including $425 million at the Tonawanda plant. Two other GM plants in Ohio and Michigan are slated to supply the Tonawanda plant with engine components.

At the time, a GM spokeswoman said a second plant for the Ecotec could be announced at a later date, giving local officials hope that Spring Hill would be that second plant. Spring Hill has produced the first generation Ecotec engine since 2002.

General Motors idled the vehicle assembly line in Spring Hill in November 2008 after deciding to transfer production of the Chevrolet Traverse to a plant in Lansing, Mich. The move came just two years after GM spent $700 million retooling the former Saturn plant, which opened in 1990, so that it would be capable of producing a wide array of GM vehicles.

After GM moved production of the Traverse, the production facility was placed on “stand-by,” ostensibly ready to resume work when the market demands it. Some 2,000 employees were laid-off, though the most senior had the opportunity to stay for nearly 1,000 remaining jobs producing engines, stamping sheet metal, managing a warehouse of Saturn parts and building injection-molded plastic bits for the Traverse.

The current Ecotec 2.4L with direct injection and variable valve timing in the Buick LaCrosse, Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain was recently recognized as one of Ward’s Auto World magazine’s 2010 “Ten Best Engines” for North America. The Ecotec is currently available in 2.0L, 2.2L and 2.4L displacements.