The rusted pipes, walkways and cross beams of the Zuni Generating Station give passersby at the intersection of Zuni Street and West 14th Avenue in Denver a brief look into history. While the steam power plant by the South Platte River is no longer in use, it was once essential to the growing energy needs of Denver’s expanding neighborhoods.
In 2020, the site was selected for demolition by Xcel Energy with plans on installing a new substation, equipment that transmits electricity to consumers. With Denver’s ambitious climate goal to achieve 100% electrification by 2030, more infrastructure will be needed to accommodate an expanding electric system.
For residents in the nearby Sun Valley and La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhoods who are experiencing rapid redevelopment through Denver Housing Authority projects as well as the proposed development of the Stadium District, communities want their voices heard when it comes to redevelopment. Plans to keep the over 120-year-old Sun Valley site alive as a community space have ignited adjoining neighborhoods that advocate for a more sustainable future for the shuttered energy facility.
“The idea of adaptive reuse is appealing,” said Jeanne Granville, president of the Sun Valley Community Coalition, who said ideas for the space have included everything from a community hub with meeting places and offices to a public marketplace for local businesses and retailers. “To make it a viable project that also benefited the community with employment opportunities and community space, it’s going to take some doing and the right partner to make it happen.”
The site would likely only be viable for commercial reuse instead of residential, Granville said, as the residential standards required for a marketplace would need a higher level of decontamination, a process known as remediation.
Considered a sustainable approach, adaptive reuse helps conserve resources and minimizes the environmental costs of constructing new buildings. Locally in Denver, other adaptive reuse projects from old buildings have included REI in Highland, The Source in RiNo, Cerebral Brewing on East Colfax Avenue and Pancratia Hall on the former Loretto Heights College campus.
The Sun Valley neighborhood currently faces environmental issues such as soil contamination from industrial infrastructure, and community members see the reuse of the power plant as a contribution to the revitalization of the area. Granville said considering the site’s long history with climate justice, reuse could turn an environmental polluter into an asset.
“While the steam plant provided a source of energy for heating and electrification, there was fallout in the air that people have had to live with for generations,” said Granville. “Xcel wants to be a leader in that space and adaptive reuse could be a way for them to show how they can evolve to embrace more environmentally-conscious practices.”
Amid the push for reuse, the defunct power plant was placed on Colorado’s Most Endangered Places list in February. Compiled by Colorado Preservation, Inc., the organization seeks to preserve historic sites that face a significant risk of being permanently lost.
“When we think of preserving places, we usually think of museums or signs that say ‘don’t touch,’” said Katie Peterson, director of Colorado Preservation’s Most Endangered Places Program. “We strive to redefine this perception of preservation by finding a place for historic resources that meet our constantly changing world. The Zuni power plant is a great example of that.”
The plant has been a fixture of west Denver since March 1900 when Charles F. LaCombe and a cohort of beneficiaries opened the LaCombe Power Plant.
“It’s a Denver monument because it broke the monopoly that Denver Gas and Electric had on the city’s energy infrastructure at the turn of the century,” said Peterson.
Peterson added that the site is a remarkable piece of history, especially considering the descendants of many of the power plant workers still live in the community today.
LaCombe’s ownership of the electric power plant was short-lived. The plant was sold to Denver Consolidated Gas and Electric Company within a year due to legal and financial troubles. During the 1910s and 1940s, it underwent several additions to meet growing energy needs and was eventually renamed the Zuni Station. Xcel Energy, formerly Denver Gas and Electric, made use of the plant until 2019 to provide steam heat to downtown Denver.
Granville said ideas for repurposing the site had been swirling since and the community had proposed ideas to Xcel, receiving some interest. When the site was slated for demolition in January 2021, community interest began to form in earnest.
In November 2021, members of Denver City Council in a signed letter requested that Xcel Energy halt the demotion to provide time for conversation within the community about potential uses of the site.
There was also concern from the community that remediation would continue to the point where the building could no longer be repurposed, Granville said.
Xcel agreed to pause any work that would impact the structure of the property, altering its original remediation plan. While negotiations continue between the city and community stakeholders, remediation does as well.
“Folks will still see work being done on the plant as well as the property just south of the building itself and that’s to bring the property to industrial use grade as was approved by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC),” said Grace Lopez Ramirez, Xcel’s Denver area manager. “By remediating to industrial use and not impacting the structure, we’ve focused more on the surgical abatement, mainly of the removal work of asbestos.”
Remediation work will continue through the summer, but as far as a longer timeline for what’s next, things are still left to be determined. While the community backing for adaptive reuse is strong, the site faces significant challenges in being restored to a community function, said Ramirez.
For example, Lopez Ramirez said, there are logistical challenges such as the north wall of the old historic building that engineers have said will be complicated to maneuver a crane necessary to remove the turbines at the top without damaging the structure. The south wall, which is all equipment, presents an additional hurdle in removing that equipment without impacting the wall’s structure. Giant turbines also sit in the basement and considerations for how to remove those without damaging the building would need to be made. Since the city was built up around the plant, considerations would also need to be made for the nearby RTD light rail tracks, the South Platte River and the traffic congestion any construction on the plant would cause.
“We’re the utility company so our role is not necessarily to further develop the property,” said Lopez Ramirez.
Xcel has only been approved by the PUC to bring the plant to an industrial grade, and the company’s costs are socialized within its customer base throughout the state of Colorado. “Any additional cost to remediate the property would need to be borne not by our Xcel Energy customers, but by whoever would like to reuse the building,” said Lopez Ramirez.
Despite the challenges, conversations continue and questions about funding and a development partner remain. Xcel is still considering its options.
“Our conversations continue with the city and community stakeholders,” said Lopez Ramirez. “We want to be good neighbors and do right by the community. We heard loud and clear that they’d like to see community benefit come from the property but that’s a big umbrella and there’s a lot of different options that are still viable for reuse.”
One example may be to reuse the property for thermal energy, which a team of graduate students from the University of Colorado Boulder recently won an award for researching.
Efforts continue from the community as well. A letter sent to Mayor Mike Johnston and Denver City Council in November 2023 – signed by more than 30 community partners – urged the City and County of Denver to exercise its right of first refusal to pursue taking ownership of the Zuni Steam Power Plant under Xcel Energy’s Franchise Agreement and work with the community to identify a potential development partner.
With recently being named one of Colorado’s most endangered places, there’s hope more can be done. The listing by Colorado Preservation, Inc. won’t provide any additional protection but the interest from historic preservation organizations, including significant advocacy from Historic Denver, provide more leadership and information about the process of preservation.
“It validates the community’s belief that adaptive reuse is the way to go, and these buildings have a real historical significance and value to the community,” said Granville. “We’re looking forward to working with the city and the larger community to envision a commercial and community use for this building.”