September 17, 2020 - ROCHESTER, MINN. – The City of Rochester has received Minnesota Historical & Cultural Heritage Grant for the evaluation of the Silver Lake Power Plant as a historic site. The original building for the Silver Lake Power Plant was constructed between 1947 and 1949, incorporates characteristics of the Art Moderne style, which often features rounded corners, smooth wall surfaces, horizontal bands of windows, and ornamentation of metal or concrete panels around doors or windows. This style creates a streamlined appearance and was often used for power plants, factories and transportation facilities to convey a modern and technologically advanced operation. Additions to the plant occurred in 1953, 1962, and 1969.

Molly Patterson-Lundgren, the City’s Heritage Preservation and Urban Design Coordinator, shares: “This grant is an exciting step in the process of understanding and preserving the history in Rochester. The recently adopted Strategic Plan calls for the Heritage Preservation Commission to review and consider over 100 properties over the next 18 months. This grant will help to achieve this goal and help to identify, earlier, properties that might be saved and reused rather than demolished.” 

Funds from the grant will be used to review the property for historical significance and if the property is eligible for listing in the National Register or designation under the local Historic Preservation Ordinance. If the Silver Lake Power Plant is deemed historically significant enough and ultimately listed on the National Register, funding could be available to adapt and reuse the building once it is no longer used for steam generation, which is currently scheduled to end in 2030.

The review of the site will consider: How much of the property is original? How important is the property to the community in terms of its role in local history and its presence on the Rochester skyline? If it is unique in its history, architecture, or construction and if so, how unique when compared to other similar local or regional properties?

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