Oakland Naval Hospital demolished with a bang

Oakland Naval Hospital, formerly called Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, which closed 15 years ago, imploded just after noon when City Councilman Larry Reid detonated 800 pounds of dynamite that blasted the 11-story building into a pile of rubble.

Neighbors applauded the demolition and exchange high-fives. Navy nurses wept. Developers sweated with relief. City officials beamed like 5-year-olds.

Reid could not stop smiling. One would think the city had a balanced budget, the A’s were staying and he just got a table at Fenton’s.

“It was awesome,” Reid said. “They asked about different ways of demolishing it. Wrecking ball and crane? I said no. We want an implosion.”

The hospital served Navy personnel and their families for 28 years, from the time it opened in 1968 until the Navy pulled out in 1996. Thousands were born or died there. Vietnam casualties were treated there. Prisoners of war healed there. Ground-breaking research in prosthetics, dialysis, tissue grafts and psychiatry happened there.

Read more here or view the video below.

Attachments speacialist introduces protective system to prolong shear life.

Genesis Attachments has introduced Shear Jaw Armour, a weld-on protective system for its GXP Mobile Shears.

Designed to fit a shear’s lower and upper jaws as well as the chin, Jaw Armour is a weld-on modular system constructed of abrasion-resistant, proprietary GenGuard steel. Once in place, the need for build-up and hardsurfacing of the newly-protected wear areas is virtually eliminated.

“The time and expense associated with maintaining mobile shears through repeated welding and hardsurfacing has long been a challenge for users,” says Steve Letko, Genesis Engineering Services Manager. “We’ve designed Jaw Armour to protect the main wear areas and project it could last up to a year in typical recycling applications, saving annual welding, labour and material costs and increasing uptime and production.”

“Jaw Armour is not only a significant development in improving shear wear, it also provides true value to our customers,” adds Letko.

When released, the complete Jaw Armour product line will include models for additional Genesis shear models, as well as competitive attachments.

Click here for further information.

Eastern Turkish municipality set to begin ‘freakish’ monument’s demolition

Demolition work on Kars’ Monument to Humanity, a peace sculpture described as “freakish” by the prime minister in January, will begin within 15 days, according to the local municipality.

“The demolition work will be launched in about 15 days. The monument will be cut to pieces and then removed,” Kars Mayor Nevzat Bozkuş said, according to a report by independent news portal bianet.org.

The area where the monument currently stands will be handed over to the National Real Estate Directorate after some environmental procedures are performed.

“If [sculptor Mehmet Aksoy] wants to have the parts [of his monument] back, we can give them back,” Bozkuş said.

A tender for the demolition was launched March 7 and was won by Avçin İnşaat, a Turkish construction firm, which will demolish the monument for 272,000 Turkish Liras ($18,000).

Read more here.

Ongoing bidding war continues to attract outsiders into US demolition business.

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (well, Killarney in September 2009), DemolitionNews had the opportunity to meet up with National Demolition Association chief executive Mike Taylor and president Ray Passeno to discuss what was rapidly turning into a US bidding war.

At the time, Taylor noted that the economic downturn had seen an increasing number of non-demolition companies – who he termed “Bob’s Landscaping” – beginning to compete for demolition work.

Fast forward 18 months and, judging by the bid reports emanating from the Alamosa School District, it appears that Bob’s Landscapting (or, in this instance, Absmeier Landscaping) remains camped in demolition’s front yard.

The Alamosa School District received 11 bids for the demolition of Polston Primary School with base bids ranging from a low of $118,000 (Absmeier Landscaping, Alamosa) to a high of $765,000 (Gardner Excavating, Alamosa).

Not only has the company managed to steal a march on its demolition rivals, it also has another deck of cards stacked in its favour. Potential bidders were advised that a five percent preference to local bidders would be enforced.

But the fact that this “open to allcomers” bidding process was so accurately prophesized by Mike Taylor almost two years ago tells only half the story. What is more telling is the fact that non-demolition companies must be incredibly desperate for work if they are willing to try their hand at a job that even highly professional companies find risky (both financially and in health and safety terms) in order to stay afloat.

That probably says more about the current state to the economy than a myriad of Wall Street economists.

Read more here.

Delays caused by lack of performance bond may result in city reallocating work.

The contractor recruited by the city of Peru to tear down the old electric powerhouse on Water Street has not begun and appears unwilling to begin.

The city council learned Wednesday from Mayor Scott Harl that A-Unified LLC of Cincinnati, Ohio wants to change the contract it signed, and has not provided a performance bond for the project.

Harl and Doug Schweickert, the city’s attorney, met with the company last week, they said. Harl and Schweickert said they were unwilling to change any contract details.

The company had 180 days since they signed the contract Jan. 24 to finish the job. The city is not paying the company, because A-Unified plans to make money salvaging metals, materials and equipment.
“The biggest problem here is A-Unified is having difficulty getting a performance bond,” Schweickert said. Harl, Schweickert and Jim Potthoff, electric supervisor, said the company is hard to reach and rarely returns phone calls.

The company is contracted also to remove asbestos. The council agreed that Harl should give A-Unified a deadline of seven days for a performance bond, or the city will seek another contractor.

Read more here.

DemolitionNews brings you more details of last weekend’s implosion.

A few days ago, we brought you some raw footage of the implosion of a pair of headstocks at Nottingham’s Welbeck Coliery. Now, thanks to the team at Ron Hull Demolition, we can bring you some more information on the blast; together with an exclusive video.

According to Ron Hull Demolition, half the village of Meden Vale in Sherwood Forest and camera crews from four television stations turned out to see the team bring down the headstocks at the century old Welbeck Colliery.

The demolition was the climax of a six-month project to clear the site, one of the last two mines in Nottinghamshire, which ceased production a year ago.

The headstocks were taken down three seconds apart, falling to the right and left of the colliery power house, a listed building that remained live throughout the operation.

Ron Hull Demolition contracts director David Wall said: “It is actually the third explosive demolition that we have carried out on the site since we moved on last November but the headstocks coming down was clearly a particularly iconic moment – carried out in full view of the whole village.”

“The major issue the team had to deal with was the presence of the power house, a listed building that lay between the headstocks. I’m pleased to say that the operation went beautifully, with the towers going just where they were intended, leaving the power house completely untouched.”

Demolition application rejected due to lack of interest from housebuilders.

A bid to flatten a group of listed buildings in north Glasgow was thrown out amid claims of “inaction, indecision and incompetence”.

Scottish Enterprise had wanted to demolish 11 of the listed buildings which made up part of the former Ruchill Hospital. All it wanted to keep was the A Listed water tower, which is a landmark for a large part of the north of the city.

But councillors rejected the application – on the casting vote of planning committee chairman John Flanagan.

Publicly funded Scottish Enterprise bought the old hospital site in 1999, intending to sell it on for housing.
One developer pulled out because of the downturn in the housing market and since then there has no other interest.

A number of years ago, the development quango was given permission to bulldoze other listed buildings on the site provided the remainder were maintained. But little was done and the remaining buildings have deteriorated badly.

Derek McCrindle, Scottish Enterprise’s director of partnerships, told the meeting: “We thought as long as security was maintained the buildings would not deteriorate. This was naive. We continued to undertake basic maintenance but security was a huge problem and we were unable to keep up with the vandalism. The most basic elements of maintenance is extremely difficult because it is dangerous.”

Two years ago, experts estimated it would cost £16.5 million to restore the buildings.

Read more here.

June implosion will topple Florida Power & Light boilers and stacks.

The deconstruction of Florida Power & Light’s oil-fired power plant in Riviera Beach began in December and is expected to become more noticeable in June, when contractors are scheduled to set off explosives that will bring down the old plant’s boilers and 91 metre (300-foot) smokestacks.

FPL’s demolition contractor, Controlled Demolition, felled a similar FPL plant in Cape Canaveral with explosives in August.

Construction of the new Riviera Beach Next Generation Clean Energy Center is expected to start in the second quarter of 2012. The building contractor, Zachry Construction of San Antonio, is expected to hire about 200 of the 600 or so workers it will need for the job from South Florida, FPL spokesman Greg Brostowicz said.

Read more here.

Central-city tenants accuse Civil Defence of mistakenly condemning buildings.

The post-quake clean-up in Christchurch, is rapidly turning into an object lesson in emergency mismanagement. In its eagerness to make safe buildings damaged in the 22 February earthquake, New Zealand’s authorities are seemingly intent on making just about every mistake possible.

The government and local authorities were initially criticised for their haste in pulling down some buildings. The management of the demolition process was subsequently described as a “train wreck” by a prominent Kiwi contractor. Then there were accusations of thefts from site by demolition crews. But, just when it appears that a stable management plan has been set in place to demolish 128 unstable or unsafe structures, news emerges that at least three of these should not actually be on the list at all.

On Friday, Civil Defence released a list of 128 Christchurch buildings earmarked for probable demolition, but quickly admitted it had made a mistake with three buildings.

Yesterday, tenants and building owners questioned the list, with some saying their buildings had been incorrectly included.

Community Law Canterbury manager Paul O’Neill said he was “absolutely shocked” to learn the Madras St law centre had been recommended for demolition. The centre was red-stickered because of danger from an adjacent building, but had suffered no significant damage, he said. “They need to be very certain before they put a building on that list.”

After contacting the emergency management office, O’Neill said he was told a mistake had probably been made and the building was unlikely to be demolished. “For them not to contact us is inexcusable really.”

Walker Davey partner John Abbot said he found out only through the media that the BDO Spicer building on Victoria St, where his office was based, was earmarked for demolition. “I think some people have just pulled some names out of a hat.”

The news contradicted the last update from the building’s owner, who had said it could probably be repaired, Abbot said.

Read more here.

Oakland medical centre to meet explosive end later this week.

Friday marks the explosive end of the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. Specialists will set charges to implode the crumbling, 11-storey concrete building Friday morning. Aside from the historic Club Knoll, the hospital is the last structures standing among the nearly 100 military homes, barracks, stores, gyms, warehouses and other mostly wood buildings that dotted the bucolic, tree-shaded base in the East Oakland hills.

The facility was formally decommissioned in 1996 during a wave of base closures around the country. After some fits and starts with another master developer, the federal government sold the 186-acre property at auction in 2005 to SunCal for $100.5 million. SunCal Oak Knoll LLC planned to build 960 homes, some affordable, most market rate, with 82,000 square feet of commercial space and 50 acres of trails and open space. The developer also promised to restore and reopen Club Knoll.

But then the bottom fell out. The company’s financial partner, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy in 2008, and SunCal did the same on 19 projects it shared with the failed financial giant, including Oak Knoll. Everything stopped except the court battles.

Workers who had started stripping the old buildings of asbestos to ready them for demolition left when SunCal could no longer pay them, leaving piles of trash behind. Vandals stripped wiring, pipes and every bit of metal from the structures, trespassers used them as party houses and their walls as graffiti canvasses. Drug dealers and squatters took over the hospital and other buildings for a time.

Oakland City Attorney John Russo ended up filing $6.7 million claims against Lehman Brothers in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York to get money to secure the property, abate the fire hazards, and finish remediation and demolition. The court released $3.7 million in November 2009, but it still took more than a year and another $1.7 million from the court to get it done.

Read more here.