Second Thoughts: TC‘s Power Plant Building would make a great Community Center

May 5, 2004

You‚‘re the parent of a 14 year old junior highschooler. Your child likes to go to the teen dances held at the YMCA. You drive there to drop off
and pick up your teenager before and after the dance. You get caught in the traffic jam and wish there was a better way. There is!
Traverse City owns a building perfect for teen dances. Not only will you be able to drop off and pick up your teenager easier, if you live in town, your teen can walk, bike, or even skate to get there. Wow, two round trips eliminated.
This building is located on the East side of the bayfront power plant. It has lots of floor space, a bathroom, is centrally located, easy to get to and located where the noise of a dance or concert won‚‘t bother anyone. It is also close to the volleyball courts, the zoo, the beaches and downtown Traverse City. This building is also ideal for many other things -- as an auditorium or a gym, a concert hall or a theatre. Some have even suggested an ice rink in the winter months. This building has the potential to bring people to the open space year ‘round. Even during the Cherry Festival, its indoor space would be sought after by many.
But there‚s a problem. The old water treatment building on the east side of the T.C. Light and Power Plant that has just been decommissioned and shut down. Unfortunately this building has been scheduled for demolition along with the rest of the power plant buildings later this year.
Why are they tearing this building down with the other power plant buildings? Probably the biggest reason is that most people know little about this building. Even though it has been here since 1938, it has never been a public building. Its whole life it has only housed water turbines and electric generators. Few people have seen the inside.
Yet, it is an exciting building. It has a high ceiling, 40 or 50 feet high, and about 7,000 square feet of floor space. There are many windows on all four of its walls and it has almost solid glass on its south wall flooding its interior with daylight. There are no smokestacks on this building, the roof is in good shape, and the interior walls have attractive amber colored tile. The floor is extra strong concrete supported by steel beams. It even has a basement that has a 12 foot high ceiling. And best of all, city residents already own this building and the mortgage is paid off.
Because this building was designed to place large generators on its floor, it has an overhead 25 ton capacity lift that travels on steel beams mounted on the walls. It can lift almost anything and place it anywhere on the floor. It could lift cars, boats, pianos, a concert stage, a skateboard half pipe ramp, pianos, large crates of cherries or produce, or any equipment that you could get on the back of a truck and through the loading dock doors in the rear of the building. This building was designed in 1938 by Hamilton and Weeber Engineering out of Grand Rapids and I believe was funded by FDR‚s Work Projects Administration (WPA). Its sturdy design and architecture is a testament of its time.
So why are they demolishing this building? Is it blocking a view of the Bay? The Power plant complex blocks about 370 feet of view along the Parkway. This building is only 57 feet wide and only half as deep as the complex. It is narrower than the West End Beach bathroom building. It is only half as wide as the Senior Center building on West Bay and It is only about one fifth the width of the brand new NMC bayfront Great Lakes Campus Building. This building‘‚s footprint makes up only about 8% of the power plant that now blocks bay views from drivers. If the TART trail was realigned to go around the north end of this building you would have uninterrupted views of the bay while walking, cycling or skating.
There will be much more open space and bay views when they tear down the other power plant buildings, the adjoining substation, and the long 10 foot high concrete retaining wall circling the complex. For both practical and historical reasons I think the preservation of this building needs to be considered.
At the 7 p.m. Monday May 3, City Commission meeting I am on the agenda to ask our Commissioners to allow the general public a chance to walk inside this building and view its interior. Most people have never seen the inside of this building. Please help me support a public viewing of this building. The decision to demolish this particular building needs to be re-evaluated, but first, the public needs a chance to see it.