Demolition is scheduled to begin sometime this summer in Colorado Springs of one of the state’s oldest and largest power plants.
Located on the southwest side of the city on around 40 acres at 700 Conejos Street, the original Martin Drake Power Plant became operational in 1925, providing up to 25 megawatts of power for residents of the city and surrounding region. It was replaced some fifty years later by a more modern facility.
Although plans were in the making for years to decommission the big facility by at least 2035 due to the health hazards associated with coal burning, it was a fire in 2019 that prompted its owner, Colorado Springs Utilities, to agree to a 2023 demolition date.
Operations at the plant were discontinued in the fall of 2022 as Colorado Springs Utilities officials announced what will be a roughly one-year schedule for the big demolition of the big plant.
The facility has long been problematic for a city touting its natural attractions and striking views of the Rocky Mountains. Its presence has also seen as a hindrance to area real estate development.
According to the Colorado College political science professor Corina McKendry in the 2020 book Climate Urbanism, “local business owners and developers” in Colorado Springs had emerged as “the most effective proponents of shuttering Martin Drake.”
If all goes according to plans, the demolition will take place in eight phases, beginning with the abatement of internal asbestos. The stacks most readily identifiable with the plant will be taken down during phases three and four.
Once the building is at last leveled in the late summer of 2024, the site is scheduled for a reseeding and regrading, which will take up much of the fall weeks of next year.
By Garry Boulard
