{"id":7859,"date":"2014-02-24T08:07:40","date_gmt":"2014-02-24T13:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/?p=7859"},"modified":"2014-09-03T19:08:56","modified_gmt":"2014-09-03T23:08:56","slug":"the-big-plans-for-rge-beebee-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/2014\/02\/the-big-plans-for-rge-beebee-station\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Plans for RG&E Beebee Station"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RG&E<\/a>
\nThe following is a guest post submitted by Joel Helfrich<\/a>.
\nSubmit your story today<\/a>.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n

I was saddened to learn last week about Rochester Gas and Electric Corp\u2019s shortsighted proposal to demolish Beebee Station. If the plans are carried out, Rochester will have a tremendous hole at the center of the city: High Falls. What is most important to realize is that there is another, alternative way forward…<\/p>\n

\"RG&E<\/a>
\nIndeed, we have oodles of examples of dirty power plants in the U.S. being successfully reused for housing, restaurant, retail, and office space, and countless other endeavors. <\/p>\n

See the Pratt Street Power Plant in Baltimore here \"external<\/a> and here \"external<\/a>. Take a look at the Long Island Power Station \"external<\/a> that was successfully converted into upscale residential condominiums. Several more projects are underway, such as the Ottawa Street Power Station \"external<\/a> reuse in Lansing, Michigan, the repurposing of Yonkers Power Station \"external<\/a> in Yonkers, NY, or the extremely cool redevelopment of the Seaholm Power Plant \"external<\/a> in Austin, Texas, which became the EPA\u2019s first \u201cReady for Reuse\u201d project under the Toxic Substance Control Act.<\/p>\n

\"RG&E<\/a>
\nHead overseas and see the Battersea Power Station \"external<\/a> in London; Gasometer City \"external<\/a> in Vienna; and the Tate Modern \"external<\/a> art museum, which is housed in the former oil-fired Bankside Power Station.<\/p>\n

Look at the following extraordinary examples of adaptive reuse of industrial buildings: a sewage treatment plant \"external<\/a> in the Netherlands, a water pumping station \"external<\/a> in Berlin, and a water processing plant \"external<\/a> in Amsterdam. Most adaptive reuse projects elsewhere in the world are at least ten times the cost of those in Rochester.<\/p>\n

\"RG&E<\/a>
\nWas there something \u201cless contaminated\u201d about those buildings? No, there was not. Admittedly, the cleanup of Beebee will require a great amount of money and will take years–perhaps a decade–to complete, but it will create many construction and permanent jobs for our community.<\/p>\n

Imagine the High Falls area without this anchor building. Then imagine loft apartments, art galleries and studios, a theater, hotel, an architecturally significant Wegmans location, shopping, restaurants, exterior climbing walls, a new park along the river, and perhaps even an environmentally-themed school with river access.<\/p>\n

\"RG&E<\/a>
\nThink of all of the amazing economic development in a portion of the City that has radically changed within the last few years. The Urban League\u2019s apartments and MCC\u2019s move to the High Falls neighborhood are just the start of what is possible. I could foresee this as a project that local, state, and federal officials, the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council, the City and County, and local business leaders could get behind and help to finance.<\/p>\n

\"RG&E<\/a>
\nThe bottom line: Rochester is so far \u201cbehind the curve\u201d of most other cities. And we do not even seem to care any longer about historic preservation. Clearly Rochester can and should do better. As one energy consulting firm executive recently stated, \u201cRepurposing these old power plants not only signals a shift in where people live and what they do … but also how they think about the environment and how our energy mix is changing and evolving.\u201d Rochester and RG&E need to \u201cget with the times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RG&E<\/a>
\nRG&E can help this community at its core, at the place in the High Falls where this City got its start. RG&E could take advantage of millions of dollars in historic preservation tax credits for equity in the redevelopment of this huge property. When the rusty metal exterior of several of the Beebee Station buildings come off, we will all see the tremendous windows and architectural detail that has been hidden for years. The possibilities for Beebee Station are endless. I remain hopeful that smarter thinking will prevail.<\/p>\n

\"RG&E<\/a><\/p>\n

RG&E will discuss their future plans for the decommissioned BeeBee Station in a private session for High Falls Business Association members this Tuesday (8:00 a.m.) at RG&E’s main office. But you can see the “future plans” right here…<\/p>\n

\"RG&E<\/a>
\nDemolition is to scheduled to be complete by the end of 2016.<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2022\u00a0\u2022<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

About Joel Helfrich:<\/h3>\n
Joel Helfrich is a father, educator, historian, and activist who works on animal rights, environmental, historic and sacred sites preservation, and social justice issues.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is a guest post submitted by Joel Helfrich. Submit your story today. I was saddened to learn last week about Rochester Gas and Electric Corp\u2019s shortsighted proposal to demolish Beebee Station. If the plans are carried out, Rochester will have a tremendous hole at the center of the city: High Falls. What is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1293,788,3,79],"tags":[1155,2498,2495,1197,118,2496,271,1073,2494,53,2039,151,857,2497],"class_list":["post-7859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reader-submitted-stories","category-old-photos-of-rochester-ny","category-mass_transit_infrastructure","category-urban_development","tag-adaptive-reuse","tag-bankside-power-station","tag-battersea-power-station","tag-demolition","tag-downtown-rochester","tag-gasometer-city","tag-high-falls","tag-joel-helfrich","tag-rge-beebee-station","tag-rochester","tag-rochester-gas-electric-rge","tag-rochester-ny","tag-rochester-photos","tag-tate-modern-art-museum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7859"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8966,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7859\/revisions\/8966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}