CTroyMathis
02 April 2002, 02:34 PM
Old power plant fading away
The changing face of downtown
04/02/2002
By ROY APPLETON / The Dallas Morning News
While workers raise the roof on an ever-sprawling Dallas Convention Center downtown, others rip out walls at the old TXU power plant blocks away.
And as the city and developers haggle over infrastructure costs around American Airlines Center, Dallas' longtime center of electricity is making way for the force of megadollars.
http://a1416.g.akamai.net/f/1416/744/1d/www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/L_IMAGE.ecc1070c00.93.88.fa.80.33fe7101.jpg
MONA REEDER / DMN
Demolition continues at the TXU power plant near American Airlines Center, where crews are gathering steel and brick for recycling. The land is supposed to be cleared this year. It is estimated that 750,000 tons will have been hauled away.
Electricity had been generated at the site on the northern edge of downtown since 1890, before TXU closed the plant in 1995 and sold the land for development around the new basketball and hockey arena.
And by year's end, the 7 acres along Stemmons Freeway are supposed to be ready for the next landmark.
The plant's last two buildings are slowly taking on that war-zone look as demolition crews try to recycle all the steel, brick and, in time, concrete they can.
When the dust settles, about 750,000 tons of material will have been hauled away, estimates Mike Cunningham, a TXU contractor who is overseeing the tear-down.
One of the buildings opened in 1919, with the other coming online a few years later.
As technology evolved, new equipment was patched in with the old.
Finally, "it was a nightmare to operate," said Mr. Cunningham, who was an engineer and plant superintendent during his years with TXU.
Now it's all coming down to nothing much more than a job.
"I never have been emotional about inanimate objects," he says. "It's a power plant."
The changing face of downtown
04/02/2002
By ROY APPLETON / The Dallas Morning News
While workers raise the roof on an ever-sprawling Dallas Convention Center downtown, others rip out walls at the old TXU power plant blocks away.
And as the city and developers haggle over infrastructure costs around American Airlines Center, Dallas' longtime center of electricity is making way for the force of megadollars.
http://a1416.g.akamai.net/f/1416/744/1d/www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/L_IMAGE.ecc1070c00.93.88.fa.80.33fe7101.jpg
MONA REEDER / DMN
Demolition continues at the TXU power plant near American Airlines Center, where crews are gathering steel and brick for recycling. The land is supposed to be cleared this year. It is estimated that 750,000 tons will have been hauled away.
Electricity had been generated at the site on the northern edge of downtown since 1890, before TXU closed the plant in 1995 and sold the land for development around the new basketball and hockey arena.
And by year's end, the 7 acres along Stemmons Freeway are supposed to be ready for the next landmark.
The plant's last two buildings are slowly taking on that war-zone look as demolition crews try to recycle all the steel, brick and, in time, concrete they can.
When the dust settles, about 750,000 tons of material will have been hauled away, estimates Mike Cunningham, a TXU contractor who is overseeing the tear-down.
One of the buildings opened in 1919, with the other coming online a few years later.
As technology evolved, new equipment was patched in with the old.
Finally, "it was a nightmare to operate," said Mr. Cunningham, who was an engineer and plant superintendent during his years with TXU.
Now it's all coming down to nothing much more than a job.
"I never have been emotional about inanimate objects," he says. "It's a power plant."