![An exterior photo of the Austin Power Plant taken Wednesday January 27, 2016 in Austin, MN. ] Austin residents are pushing back on a plan to demolish the old power plant and put a recreation center in its place. The city has a troubling history of tearing down its best buildings, some say, and ought to think twice before getting rid of this one, with its red brick and beautiful rooms. But folks with Vision 2020, the group behind the plan, believe its central location will be key to a revitalized](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/F5W23U3R4ZCTBBCPIBXK3HVGBQ.jpg?&w=1080)
A long-planned demolition of the shuttered power plant in Austin, Minn., got underway last week as crews prepared the site for a future YMCA recreation center.
The Austin Municipal Plant closed in 2009, and its 7-acre, center-of-town site along the Cedar River was re-imagined as various things before the rec center plan took hold.
Mayor Tom Stiehm said the planning has been going on for so long that some locals may be surprised to see work crews on the site this week knocking down walls.
"It's exciting," he said.
The recreation center, with an anticipated completion date of fall 2019, will anchor further redevelopment plans for that portion of the city and serve as a key piece of Vision 2020, a planning effort that's driving a variety of plans for Austin's future.
Opposition to the rec center plan included a movement to restore the original power plant and convert it into a business or living space, but those plans never won enough support, said Matt Cano, a co-chair of the Community Recreation Center committee for Vision 2020.
"It was simply not within budget to do that," Cano said.
Almost all of the power plant will be swept away, except for a pumping station and a water reservoir needed for now for the city's water system, said Mark Nibaur, Austin Utilities' general manager.
