Vision 2020 is one step closer to acquiring the former downtown Austin Municipal Plant to build a Community Recreation Center at the site.

The Austin Utilities Board voted 5-0 Tuesday night to approve a conditional purchase agreement to sell the former plant to Vision 2020.

“We got the ball going with the board approval last night,” Utilities General Manager Mark Nibaur said.

To Nibaur, the unanimous vote showed the board’s support for the Vision 2020 Community Recreation Center Committee’s plan to build a $35 million rec center at the site.

But he added the board’s vote was just the first step in a long process that still needs to go before the Austin City Council.

“There’s a lot of pieces that still need to happen before we move forward,” Nibaur said.

With the roughly $2 million purchase agreement, Austin Utilities would demo parts of the site, relocate everything currently housed at the plant and it would undertake environmental mitigation.

Utilities is nearing completion on its roughly $18 million Energy Park facility near Austin’s Todd Park, and it will begin moving all its operations and offices there this spring and summer.

Vision 2020’s goal is to build a rec center that would likely be jointly operated by the city and YMCA. Plans call for part of the facility be a new YMCA that would only be accessible to Y members, while other parts would be publicly accessible rec center space, though many details are still being worked out.

The facility would likely feature things like an indoor playground, a family aquatic center, community spaces, gyms, a gymnastics facility, workout rooms, a running track and more.

Vision 2020’s preferred site for the rec center is the downtown plant.

Along with the purchase agreement, Vision 2020, the YMCA and the city are also negotiating an operating agreement for the YMCA to run what would be a city-owned rec center.

Next, the Austin City Council will discuss the purchase and operating agreements, and could vote on the plans in April, according to Vision 2020 Director Greg Siems.

But the public still has time to discuss the plans. Vision 2020 will host two public forums at noon and 7 p.m. on March 15 in the large meeting room of Austin Public Library. Rec center committee co-chairs Matt Cano and Tanya Medgaarden, along with Siems, will discuss the project’s recent progress, the next steps in the process and answer questions from attendees.

The rec center plans at the power plant site has drawn public discussion.

Quin Brunner and Janet Anderson, an Austin City Council member, formed a Facebook group, penned a letter and started a Change.org petition to call for the parties involved to slow down and give the community more time to discuss potential uses for the downtown plant and potential locations for the rec center.

They’d like Vision 2020 to examine building near the Austin Post Office area so the plant could be developed for other uses. However, Vision 2020 and some city officials have said there aren’t enough developers interested in the downtown plant site.