Undiscovered asbestos to balloon costs.

The cost of the Quincy Fair Mall demolition project could more than double after even more asbestos was found in the building.

It was thought last week the material was contained to only one section of a hidden floor that had asbestos tiling. But the city was informed this week that it’s more widespread, pushing the demolition several months behind schedule into the fall.

“It’s turned out to be about as bad as it can be,” said Dennis Harrington, Quincy’s planning director. “Not from a public health standpoint, but from a cost standpoint. It turned out there are lots of hidden floors with asbestos material.”

The situation is expected to balloon the project cost from $500,000 to about $1.1 million, Harrington said. That said, the added expense won’t come out at city taxpayers’ expense, and instead will be paid with surplus federal stimulus funds.

The state department of environmental protection has determined asbestos is all around the building, making it more difficult, delicate and costly to get rid of the materials. Nonetheless, officials stress that the asbestos is not a public health threat because it hasn’t been disturbed and become airborne.

“They don’t know how much flooring is false, because this building is partially demolished and they can no longer send people to walk around in there (due to asbestos),” Harrington said. “They’ve decided to assume it all has to come out.”

Read more here.

Up to half of all country’s residential properties in need of demolition & rebuilding.

Chinese officials announced recently that they estimate up to half of the country’s existing residential structures will need to be demolished and rebuilt in the next 20 years in part because of poor quality building work – but also because many of the buildings were built without planning permission.

China annually sees more construction than any other country. In recent years, the nation has had up to 2 billion square metres of development annually. Each year, China uses 40 percent of the world’s cement and steel, the main ingredients of the construction industry.

But both experts and industry watchers have questioned the rapid speed of demolition and reconstruction, criticising poor building practices and a lack of consistent urban planning, along with a blind pursuit of economic gain on the part of developers.

In April, Qiu Baoxing, vice-minister of the ministry, said during an industry forum that Chinese buildings can only stand for between 25 and 30 years. In contrast, the average life expectancy of a building in Britain is 132 years and they last around 74 years in the United States.

Read more here.

Michigan motorcycle shop may close after demolition next door causes subsidence.

A Bay City business could be relocating in the coming weeks after a neighboring building’s demolition caused walls to buckle and subside.

Bill Smith, owner of Competition Enterprises, was told to leave his motorcycle shop due to damage done to a common wall between his shop and an unoccupied building at 1610 Broadway Street.

Now, Smith could be searching for a new location, as a city inspector had the business shutter its doors and leave about $100,000 worth of merchandise behind.

View the video here.

Brandenburg is low bidder but Bierlein gets the contract.

The city of Parchment and River Reach Partners LLC, which is planning to redevelop a vacant paper-mill property in the city, are hoping for state approval of the company they have chosen for the first round of demolition of mill buildings.

Bierlein Companies Inc., of Midland, among the largest demolition companies in the United States, is the choice of the city and developer from five bidders who sought the long-anticipated city project. Bierlein’s bid of $1,345,000 to take down Mill No. 1 along Riverview Drive between First Community Federal Credit Union to the south and Island Avenue to the north was the second-lowest of the five bids.

Brandenburg Industrial Service Co., of Chicago, came in with a lower bid, but the city and developer gave their support to Bierlein because it is a Michigan company and for the way it addressed such things as pricing of individual components of the project.

Read the full story here.

Cape Times takes simplistic approach to Athlone Tower implosion explanation.

Predicting the rate and direction of a just-imploded falling structure is notoriously difficult. In fact, until the advent of computer simulation software from the likes of Applied Science International (ASI), it was something of a black art, known to only a handful of experts who passed their knowledge down through the generations.

South Africa’s Cape Times newspaper apparently doesn’t have access to the high tech ASI software; nor was it able to call upon the incisive and experienced mind of a lifelong blaster. So, in order to explain the technical issues facing the demolition engineers charged with felling the Athlone Towers on 22 August, it resorted to that tried and tested simulation method of large photo and red marker pen.

It will be interesting to see just how closely the descent of the two towers matches the low-tech predicted path.

Workers and locals hurt as demolition of Quezon City shanties resumes

Eight people were hurt on Thursday as a demolition team tried, for the second day, to clear a 7,000-square meter lot at the corner of Broadway Avenue and 7th Street in Barangay Marianas, Quezon City in the Philippines.

Several pillbox explosions occurred as residents stood their ground behind a makeshift barricade to protect their shanties, according to Superintendent Edgardo Pamittan, commander of the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) Station 11.

“Intermittent pillbox explosions in the area resulted in the injury of six laborers and two members of the Special Weapons and Tactics team,” Pamittan said.

Read more here.

Thieves get more than they bargained for with 20 tonnes of deadly asbestos.

A trailer carrying 20 tonnes of asbestos has been stolen from a Willshee’s Waste Management, in Glensyl Way, Burton. Now an alert has gone out urging anyone who spots it to call in expert disposal teams.

A spokesman for Burton police said: “We are advising people that if they do see a large quantity of material dumped anywhere not to go near it, but to contact the Environment Agency as a matter of urgency.”
The raid happened when thieves drove up to the firm’s depot in a white Scania lorry tractor and hooked up the distinctive green trailer laden with its toxic cargo.

Dean Willshee, director of Willshee’s skip hire, said: “It was loaded with asbestos from numerous sites, ready to be disposed of. “It’s not just a few sheets – it’s a colossal amount. If drilled the dust from it can be dangerous. I think they nicked it not knowing what was in the back of the trailer. I think they are going to have a bit of a shock when they come to dispose of it.”

Mr Willshee said the thieves were captured on CCTV trying to steal the trailer and had spent about 30 minutes carrying out the raid.

Read more here.

Video footage charts progress of works to pave way for London’s Crossrail project.

We were there the night the final curtain came down at London’s famous Astoria music venue and now, 18 months later, we can bring you a high-speed, time-lapse video showing the demolition of the Astoria and the neighbouring 157-167 Charing Cross Road.

The video below, which comes courtesy of London Underground, was shot by the Centre Point cam.

The demolition work both here and at the Goslett Yard site, undertaken by McGee Group, is now complete. Now that the ground has been cleared, construction of a temporary EDF substation is underway on the Astoria site.

Read more here.

Presence of stray cats delays demolition works.

Neighbours of an abandoned Florida condo building said the Wednesday demolition was postponed due to cats living inside the facility.

Danielle Crocker, who led the effort to delay the demolition of the South Beach building, said she and other volunteers contacted the building’s owner, TD Bank, and contractor ASC Inc., but they did not make any headway until Miami-Dade County got involved in the situation, WPLG-TV, Miami, reported Wednesday.

“The property is supposed to contact us if there are living animals inside. They never did,” said officer Levare Baker of Miami-Dade Animal Services.

Read the full story here.

Mounting refurbishment costs force developer to consider explosive options.

Implosion is on the table for what’s left of the Evansville Executive Inn. The city is talking with a couple of different demolition companies about bringing down the building if that’s the way the new hotel project heads.

Browning Investments was supposed to refurbish the remaining half of the old Executive Inn and turn it into a new hotel. But the company found fixing it up was too expensive and is giving the hotel back to the city.
Browning is recommending the old building be demolished and a new hotel altogether built.

Arena project manager John Kish said the city is looking at multiple options for bringing the Exec down.
“Just as when we demolished the first half of the Exec there is an idea of using a collapsing method – implosion – as well as traditional swinging the ball and knocking it over,” he said. The first half came down this winter using that traditional method. The major difference between now and then – the skeleton of the arena is now largely in place.

“When they took down the original tower, they had a 100-foot safety radius around it,” Kish said. “It was ten stories tall. This is eight stories tall, and the arena is about 90 feet away. So, we do think there’s any extraordinary risk involved.”

Read more and watch a video report here.