-In 2021, the nonprofit Georgetown Steam Plant
Community Development Authority
signed a long-term lease with the city
to assume programing and operations of the plant.
Joining us now, Sam Farrazaino, he heads up the organization.
Well, Sam, tell us why the CDA decided to focus
on this power plant. -Well, this is, uh,
truly my most favorite building in all the world.
Just the history, the creativity,
and the engineering that is in here.
Uh, the honor to, like, bring that back to life
and give it to the community has been
the mission of the organization since we heard City Light
was interested in finding a partner.
-So down the road, what kind of events
are you hoping to host here?
-Oh, well, we’re already doing a bunch of different, uh,
dance and theater and music, um, photo tours.
We’re doing, uh, ghost hunting.
We’re doing all kinds of different things.
But the goal is really
to make the building universally accessible
and be able to do more and more of those types of things.
Uh, really to get anybody and everybody in here
to be inspired by this space and the history.
-So with its age,
I imagine that you have to do a lot of work and upkeep.
-Yeah, we are in a really deep and long and rich,
uh, planning phase, working with the city,
uh, working with City Light, with our structural engineers,
with our designers and architects,
uh, to really understand
how the building will function in an earthquake or in a fire
and what the changes we are going to bring to it
will -- how they will affect that.
Um, so we don’t have the final answer yet,
but we have a lot of the information.
It will need a full seismic retrofit, uh,
fire and life safety, smoke control,
all that kind of stuff.
Um, and we’re looking for universal accessibility.
So being able to get folks of all abilities
up to the top of the top of the building, um,
so that’s elevators and stairs and egress and fire exiting.
Right now we’re trying to do some minimal work in that,
uh, towards that big project, uh, things like --
that the fire department would like to see us do
to protect people in the interim
in the events that we do now.
-Just to make it safe. -Yeah.
-So public tours -- you do public tours.
Tell me about that. When are they available?
-Yeah, so every second Saturday of the month,
from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., we open the building
and you can wander through on your own,
check out all the different areas.
Or we have guided tours with,
uh, incredibly intelligent docents who actually know
how all of the individual pieces of machinery work
and City Light sponsors
that open house every second Saturday.
-One last question. What makes this so special?
-Oh. [ Laughs ]
Uh...
I have not met anybody who has walked in here yet,
who hasn’t verbally been just like, "Oh, my gosh",
been inspired.
This, to me, is the industrial cathedral.
The light streaming in the windows,
the history that is here,
it brings it -- the whole thing alive.
Years ago, I told City Light I would, uh, clean the toilets
and mow the lawn and everything if I could just live here.
And they laughed at me. But, uh.
But now I have the keys for 60 years.
And really, the goal is to get the community
to share in this amazing resource.
-Thank you, Sam.
Appreciate all your passion for this place.
♪♪
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