Gensler, in partnership with Avon Lake Environmental Redevelopment Group (ALERG), City of Avon Lake, and Avison Young, have presented initial redevelopment plans for the environmental remediation and sustainable redevelopment of the historic Avon Lake Generating Station in Avon Lake, Ohio. The redevelopment scheme will serve as an opportunity to reframe the former coal-fired powerplant site into a regional attraction while restoring the lakefront ecosystem.
The master plan covers 40 acres of real estate along the shores of Lake Erie, consisting of the coal-fired generating station, submerged lands lease, substation/switch gear and transformers, administrative offices and structures, coal rail, and storage yard parcels south of Lake Road. The entire team has been planning for the future of the site, ensuring that the property will benefit all members of the community, drive economic impact, and create new job opportunities, all while sustainably redeveloping the site for the betterment of the environment.
According to the architecture firm, five principles guided the redevelopment strategy, which are: create a new vision for the city of Avon Lake, create an accessible public realm along the lakefront, extend the city of Avon Lake to the waterfront, utilize an eco-friendly adaptive design strategy; and explore the option of an adaptive reuse of the Historic Turbine Hall and Transformer building.
With the decommissioning of the coal-fired power plant on site, there is an opportunity for Avon Lake to reinvent itself for the 21st Century. The size of this site offers a significant redevelopment opportunity to further bolster the economic and social heart of the city and its surrounding communities. Most critically, the vision for the site will connect the City of Avon Lake back to the shorelines of Lake Erie. -- Andre Brumfield, Gensler Principal and Global Cities + Urban Design Leader
Following ALERG's full acquisition of the Avon Lake Generating Station and adjacent property from GenOn, the company was responsible for the shutdown and decommissioning of the coal power plant, which provides a reduction of approximately half a million tons of CO2 per year from entering the atmosphere, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Late last year, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the current and former sites of Terminals 1, 2, and 3 on the south side of John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens will be redeveloped to make way for a $9.5 billion international terminal. A design-build team of AECOM Tishman—the construction management arm of global engineering giant AECOM—and Gensler have been tapped for the massive revamp, which is expected to generate over 10,000 jobs, including 6,000 union construction jobs.
