Energy is fading from a long effort to save a 122-year-old power plant on Denver’s Westside from the wrecking ball.
Last July, Xcel Energy made clear it was ready to sell its Zuni Generating Station, which is nestled between Sun Valley and the South Platte River and closed in 2015. The utility originally gave Denver officials 90 days to exercise a right of first refusal to buy the property.
The city managed to extend those three months, but Mayor Mike Johnston never clearly stated if Denver would, or could, spearhead an effort to preserve the old smokestacks and warehouses. Historic Denver and a group of Sun Valley residents had been pushing Johnston’s administration to help save the structures, then turn them into community spaces that might benefit the neighborhood.
John Deffenbaugh, Historic Denver’s president and CEO, said he got some bad news about the plant’s future on Monday. Xcel sent a letter saying Denver had declined to use its right of first refusal and that the company was moving on. Xcel said it’s listed the plant for sale to any buyer, though just for 30 days.
Xcel spokesperson Tyler Bryant said the company would move forward with an older plan to decommission and demolish the property if no buyers come forward.
The short timeline has preservationists worried.
Mayor Johnston’s administration is interested in seeing the plant saved, but the city is not in a position to lead that effort, according to a statement from a city spokesperson.
“Denver supports the community and historic preservation advocates in their goal of finding positive, community-supportive uses for the Zuni Power Plant site,” the statement reads. “Unfortunately, the cost of the environmental and structural remediation required to reuse the property is not feasible for the city to take on at this moment. Xcel has now offered the property to the public for sale, and we look forward to working with the eventual buyer to support them in their efforts to renew this iconic property.”
But Deffenbaugh said the short 30-day window is a sign that the rescue effort is running out of options. There likely won’t be any preservation-minded buyers for the city to partner with, if anyone buys it at all.
“It's abundantly clear that the site is not priced to sell in a way which will facilitate the preservation of the building,” he said. “This has been a really long-term endeavor, and that's why it's so disappointing that it has now been put on the market at this price for this very short period of time.”
For months, Deffenbaugh had been in talks with local entrepreneur Danny Newman to generate a coalition of private funders who might work with the city to buy and renovate the site. Newman previously bought My Brother’s Bar and the Mercury Cafe in similar (though much smaller) preservation efforts. He said he’s certain Xcel’s timeline and price point will bar any serious buyer from making a bid on the power plant.
Deffenbaugh said Xcel was selling the property for $7.5 million, but that’s not stated in the real estate listing and Xcel did not confirm the figure.
“Even if it was ready-to-go, raw land — it’s way overpriced for that,” he told us. “The reality is it would cost $15 to $20 million to tear down and remediate it, to get it to a place where a developer could come in.”
If Xcel was interested, Deffenbaugh said, they could make a renovation possible. He’d prefer the utility give up the land for nothing and fund fixes needed to reopen the facilities for other uses.
“In an ideal world, it would come with a chunk of cash from Xcel as a sign of goodwill to support the community in their endeavors and to make good the years of environmental pollution that building has generated for surrounding communities because of its coal burning operations,” he said.
“There is an absolutely realistic pathway forward for a privately led, adaptive-reuse project on the site. But that needs meaningful engagement from Xcel, and that is not occurring.”
