Delaware Power Plant at Penn Treaty Park, photo by Flickr user pwbaker, Creative Commons

Up in Fishtown’s Penn Treaty Park, one of the region’s oldest power plants sits dormant as its future hangs in the balance. Will the Delaware Power Station be reused, or will the fate that befalls so many power plants - demolition -meet this one as well?  From WHYY’s Arts and Culture Desk, Alex Schmidt paid a visit to the plant and heard from some folks with some interesting ideas for its future.

Listen to Alex’s story here.

These days, city planners prefer not to put the buzzing and machinery of power plants near next to the gentle bubbling of rivers.

But it wasn’t always that way. At the onset of the Industrial Revolution, rivers were seen mainly as tools for developing industry. So, across the country power plants were built next to waterways, where coal shipments could reach the structures easily, and hydroelectric power harnessed.   But the rivers served another important purpose: They provided a billboard of sorts for companies, like PECO, to proclaim that a new form of energy - electricity - was here to stay.

That symbolism is about all that’s left at the Delaware Power Station in Penn Treaty Park. Built in 1917 and retired in the eighties, it’s an enormous tan brick art deco building fenced off from the public.  And that’s just what attracted neighborhood resident and activist Hilary Regan to it.

Regan: “People come by it and they wonder, what is that, where did this building come from? That’s sort of how I felt the first time I saw it, it was this sort of mystery, and I learned more about it, and I became fascinated that a company in the early 1900s, associated with making electricity, would invest and build such a structure as this, using the same architects as some of the institutions - Franklin Institute on the Parkway - of John T. Windrim’s work.”

Regan would like to see the structure preserved and reused. But this building, like possibly hundreds of unused power plants across the country, faces some serious challenges.

These power stations are definitely at risk for a number of different reasons.

Gil Cooke is a retired engineer and historian of technology with the Society of Industrial Archaeology.

Cooke: “One, lack of interest.  Two, no organization dedicated to that. Three, these power stations are obsolete of course.”

Not to mention the environmental concerns that these old stations leach contaminants into the water and that the land they sit on is often more valuable than anything they might be developed into. Upwards of $60 million is the price tag to convert the building. But Hillary Regan believes the project could be incorporated into Mayor Nutter’s plan to redevelop the Delaware River waterfront.

Regan: “Now people are just discovering it, or actually demanding, that they be able to access their waterfront. And to do that we need an anchor. And really the redevelopment of this station would be that anchor.”

William Penn, by Flickr user pwbaker, Creative Commons License

Seven-acre Penn Treaty Park is said to be the site of William Penn’s historic signing agreement with the Lenape Indians who lived along the river. Today, though, it isn’t the most obvious of recreational sites. It’s surrounded by industrial space both to the north and south, and to reach it from adjacent neighborhoods, you have to walk by whizzing traffic on Delaware Avenue. Not many people make the trip. Even Mayor Nutter had never visited before an event just this past year.

Regan: “I’m glad he came here because hopefully it will make him understand that the waterfront really can be his legacy.”

Regan proposes that the building be turned into a museum for kinetic art and she’s created a proposal to bring in the work of sculptor Alexander Calder. There is precedent for such a development - the Tate Modern in London is famously cited as an example of adaptive reuse of a power plant for a museum. But even in that possible best case scenario, some point out that there is history which would be lost. Tom Sarkus is an energy expert in Pittsburgh who studies industrial history as a hobby. He hopes the turbines inside the building can be preserved in place.

Sarkus: “I appreciate the architecture of a fine building as much as the next person, but what we see a lot of times is that the developers give just a passing nod to history. They may put a plaque somewhere, and I don’t mean to get on the soapbox here, but technology and mathematics and science have made this country, and I think we need to put it front and center in a lot of things we do, and that includes historic renovation.”

Regan says the new building as she envisions it would pay tribute to its technological history. But that would be decided down the line. Right now, the property owner, Exelon, parent company of PECO, says it has no plans for the structure.  And design group Penn Praxis, which is at the forefront of Mayor Nutter’s plan to redevelop the waterfront, is working on a more detailed proposal for the river.  They won’t say to what extent, if any, the Delaware Power Station will be involved. Hilary Regan can only hope that it will.

Regan: “At this point we really need some money, and we really need a leader to come up and say, this is gonna be the anchor, and this is a project that represents our time.”

The Penn Praxis plan will be released in 4 to 5 months.

Have ideas for the Delaware Power Station?  Suggest them in the comments.