Roosevelt Roads powerhouse

Governor Rossello announced a plan for development of the former Roosevelt Roads. Sounds great to me but we've had other plans before that never happened. Maybe this time will be different, thought Charlie Brown as Lucy held the football. 

As part of the plan, Nuevo Dia reports:

Other development includes the generation of sustainable energy, an area of great need, even more after the experience of Hurricane Maria. The structure, explained Laboy, already exists, it is a matter of enabling it.

Initially, between one and five megawatts of energy could be generated.

I wonder what structure he is talking about? Unless he is talking about the PREPA 40MW gas turbine across the road from Roosevelt Roads, the only structure I can think of is the old powerhouse. This was built in about 1940 and has not run since about 1945. The machinery was still there in 1974 but was removed and sat for years in the weeds in Fajardo where Office Max used to be. 

The structure is interesting. It was designed to withstand simultaneous hits by 2 12" shells from a German Battleship. This was when it was thought the British royal family and govt would be evacuated to Roosey. 

Here's a recent picture showing the construction:

The top roof is not a facade, that is solid reinforced concrete. If anything gets through this, there is an inner roof, about 6-8' thick. You can see this from about the top of the slit windows to the top of the platform where the stairs end. Building walls are about 6-8' thick concrete. (feet, not inches) Lots and lots of heavy rebar throughout.

It would be interesting to see it as a power plant again. Whatever they do with it, they won't tear it down. I knew the engineer who built it and he was asked to tear it down by the Navy in the 70's. Basically, he told me, it can't be done short of nuclear weapons. He is the one who told the construction details.