By Rob South, WKAR News

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-919260.mp3

LANSING, MI –

Reigniting an Icon

Lansing's Ottawa Street Power Station is in the midst of a $120 million dollar renovation. The Accident Fund Insurance Company will use the building as part of its new headquarters complex. Over the past year and a half, the outside of the riverfront icon has been cleaned and repaired, and now looks much as it did when it was opened in the 1940s. Inside, however, the coal-burning power plant is being transformed into high-end office space.

Our Reigniting an Icon series continues with a look at how the building's industrial past is being incorporated into its corporate future.

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When I first toured the Ottawa Street Power Station in 2005, its massive coal-burning boilers and powerful turbines had been removed and sold for scrap. The main building was little more than an abandoned shell; there were no offices, no conference rooms, indeed, there were no floors. Rusting iron beams, twisted metal cat-walks and stairs that led into the dirty, black maw of the building promised little more than frightening curiosity.

One of the few bright spots of the power station was the turbine hall, and that's where I met Lis Knibbe for this tour. She's with Quinn-Evens Architects in Ann Arbor, and she's leading the historic preservation efforts.

"One of the things that's interesting about the turbine hall is that the walls are done with glazed tile, and on the tops of the pillars, there's decorative tile that echo the shape of the building," says Knibbe. "But what's unusual to me is that they did the turbine hall as such a nice space, they were obviously proud of it, and obviously when they brought the public into the building, this was the space that they showed them."

The turbine hall was a cavernous, three-story space before redevelopment began. Its floor to ceiling windows brought in light and helped interpret the power station's role in the community. Knibbe says a main goal of the developer was to add new floors to the building while maintaining the character of the windows.

"One of the other things that you'll see throughout the building is that we've held the new ceilings back from the exterior walls, because often the windows go up beyond the next floor," Knibbe explains. "So, it gives the appearance that the ceiling is floating and that the exterior wall just continues up and that it's infinite space."

While the original architects Edwyn Bowd and Orly Munson likely expected the public to come and admire the steam-powered turbines, it's hard to believe anyone would have much interest in the structural and mechanical elements that helped keep them running. Yet, at the east end of the hall is the massive overhead traveling crane that operators would use to lift the multi-ton turbines so they could quickly be replaced or repaired. The crane's cables, hook and track have all been given fresh coats of battleship gray paint. The cab is a pleasant orange. Knibbe says what was once the building's back door will be the new main entry for the Accident Fund.

"What we're looking at here is where the gantries are, where the crane went out in order to be able to pick up the new turbines," Knibbe says. "And we're developing a new entrance that goes between the historic building and the addition that will provide an entrance into the atrium that connects the two buildings together. And what's nice about this entry is that it has this Tinker Toy metal gantry out there that's very industrial that will be right adjacent, contrasting this very slick, modern new building. So again you're really contrasting this old and the new in a way that complements them both."

Throughout the building, there are a lot of "Tinker Toy"-like elements that Knibbe says add to its historic appeal.

"We're on the third floor, and what you're looking at is where the columns were too tall to do in a single piece of steel in the original construction so they spliced one column on top of another," Knibbe notes. "So you see plate upon plate upon plate of steel riveted together. And so you get these massive columns going through here that again just shows the original construction of the building."

Even with the historic preservation of key elements, this is essentially a new building inside an old building. Every interior space has been changed except one. The original lobby of the power station is being restored to its original, art deco style.

"So this room was the original entry lobby that came off the south side on Ottawa Street through a set of absolutely fantastic steel doors," says Knibbe. "But the lobby itself is finished with the same glazed tile as the turbine hall and you'll see that there was a drop ceiling in here and then above the drop ceiling was originally a decorative cornice that retained in place. So, we're going to restore the missing elements and restore this as a decorative room within the building. It won't be the entry anymore; it will be a secondary entry so we see it being used as a meeting room. So again, there was a thought when they designed this building of how they would bring the public in and bring the public in to see the turbine hall as the signature space within the building."

The Accident Fund Insurance Company hopes to move into its new "old" headquarters next April.