Downtown plant’s neon sign shining its last
Published 10:05 am Tuesday, November 22, 2016
- The letters that make up the Austin Municipal Plant sign will be reinstalled at the new operations center. Photo provided
The neon Austin Utilities light at the Historic Downtown Power Plant will shine for its final days this week.
Plans have been made to shut the power off to the historic location as one of the final steps in the decommissioning process of the plant, according to a news release from Austin Utilities officials.
The buildings are located on the site for the new Austin Community Recreation Center. The Austin City Council recently approved an operating agreement with the YMCA to allow the project planning to continue.
Plans are to remove the buildings when recreation center construction details progress. Meanwhile, with the opening of the new Austin Utilities Service and Operations center and a recent public auction to clear out all remaining items inside, the buildings are now sitting empty. Shutting off power and heat to the buildings is a cost-saving measure for the utility.
The original plant was constructed on the site in 1888, when the City Council approved the erection of a small power plant (owned privately by S. H. and Winfield Scott Pierce, the Austin Electric Light Company) on Water Street, now Fourth Avenue Northeast. The facility was destroyed in a 1928 tornado, and reconstructed through a series of additions lasting into the 1950’s.
As a fully functioning power plant in its prime, it acted as the Austin Utilities central facility housing all departments. The plant provided steam for the downtown area district heating system and had capacity of 26 megawatts of steam driven generation and a 5 MW natural gas fired combustion turbine generator. Throughout the life of the plant the facility utilized three fuel sources at various times: coal, fuel oil and natural gas.
The downtown plant may be best remembered for its performance during a bitter ice storm in 1991, according to officials. The area was surrounded with power outages when lines and poles that delivered power into the Austin area were down. Staff was able to start and operate the plant and provide power to most of the Austin community until repairs were made to the power grid.
