05/16/2024
One of our favorite projects to be apart of thus far has been The Battery, the former Delaware River Generating Station in Philadelphia which was once PECOs largest power station. At the completion of the project, Kinetic Elevator will have installed 8 MRL traction elevators and 1 hydraulic elevator.
It’s always hard to fathom how something as large, expensive, and integral to a city’s history as Philadelphia’s Delaware River Generating Station winds up abandoned. Dust floated lazily through the air of the turbine hall, illuminated by some impressive shafts of light filtering in through the skylights overhead, but when we first stepped foot onsite in 2021 with the architects reconstructing the outside of the building but the inside still littered with graffiti, it seemed that we were in a place that had transcended time itself and stood in both the past and present, part of both and neither.
When the power plant opened in 1923, it powered almost half of Philadelphia. by 1969 the main turbine hall and original boiler houses were inactive and only the 1953 expansion (which was added for a more efficient source of power) was still online. By 2000 the plant’s expansion was only used to balance out times of peak demand and the entire station was closed in 2008. In 2023, the legendary, 500,000 square foot powerhouse was brought back to life as a waterfront destination, world-class residence, and lifestyle club with a hotel and event venue—energizing all of Philadelphia once again. As a nod to the past, the nomenclature used in the original layout will be preserved and honored.
Pictures are a few of the completed elevators, some elevators in progress and some before and after of this ongoing project that we are thrilled to be apart of!
