Demolition of iconic smokestack at Michigan State stokes backlash

A visual icon at Michigan State University is scheduled for demolition this summer, tearing a rift in the campus community.

The MSC smokestack, which has served as a guiding landmark for disoriented students on the campus since its construction in 1948, is being torn down because the tower is deteriorating and runs the risk of falling, the university said.

“Although I understand and even agree with the reasons for the destruction of the MSC smokestack, I’m sure I’ll tear up the first time I ride my bike on Shaw Lane and notice that it’s missing,” said Emily Syrja, a junior who said she was inspired to attend the university by her grandmother, a 1952 graduate of the then-called Michigan State College.

The 70 metre (230-foot) tall tower, built as an addition to the Shaw Lane Power Plant near Spartan Stadium, features the letters “MSC” along the side in white bricks. The school changed its name in 1955.

The plant was shut down in 1975 when it could no longer handle the power needs of the school and the smokestack has fallen into disrepair.

Recent inspections found that the mortar joints in the tower’s top 35 feet have deteriorated and run the risk of falling down, MSU spokesman Kent Cassella said in a statement. A wire cage was installed around the top to keep the bricks anchored, and a fence has been placed 150 feet around the base of the tower for safety.

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Campaigners criticise plan to demolish part of listed London building to create public courtyard.

Just days after a landmark case that looks set to rewrite planning rules for UK demolition, conservationists have reacted angrily over plans to demolish an auction room to the rear of 20 Hanover Square in the heart of London’s Mayfair.

The Victorian Society said the structure was of “outstanding significance” and urged the council to reject the application. The council said it cannot comment or it may prejudice the hearing.

Heloise Brown, conservation adviser for the Victorian Society, said: “20 Hanover Square is recognised as being of outstanding national significance and the auction room at the rear is an interesting and well-designed piece of architecture that reflects the changing use of the building.

“The developer has an obligation to provide public benefit from this scheme but this must not be fulfilled by destroying part of a Grade II listed building, particularly as there is already a large open space just metres away in Hanover Square.”

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City undercuts demolition professionals to win contract to demolish “Ol’ Stinky”

Okaloosa County will use its own crews to demolish the old Garnier’s wastewater treatment plant on Essex Road in Ocean City. Commissioners unanimously approved the in-house project earlier this week.

“These are tough budgetary times,” Water and Sewer Director Jeff Littrell told commissioners. “We believe we can go in there and pull it off for about half (the cost).”

Littrell said his crews can dismantle the plant for about $750,000. The county had budgeted about $1.5 million for a private contractor to do the job. The cost of the demolition should be offset significantly by selling recyclable material at the plant, including large amounts of concrete, stainless steel, copper and aluminum.

“We’re going to make this as green and sustainable a project as possible,” Littrell said. “We’re going to try and salvage and recycle everything.”

Commissioner Dave Parisot said he is concerned about the safety of county employees. “This type of demolition is a new task that we haven’t done,” he said. “Safety is going to be paramount. … We need to make sure our people are protected. There’s a great potential for some falls out there.”

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Plans are already underway to decommission the tsunami-swamped Fukushima plant.

Hydrogen explosions. High levels of radiation. Thousands of gallons of contaminated water dumped into the sea. With the drumbeat of bad news, including another powerful aftershock on Thursday, it will take months, if not years, to stabilise the reactors and spent fuel pools that were damaged in last month’s earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

Yet it is not too soon for a team of engineers from Japan and the United States to begin working on the thorny task of how to dismantle the reactors, four of which are so badly damaged that the plant’s operator has said they will be scrapped.

Already, dozens of engineers from Toshiba – which helped build four of the plant’s reactors – have been joined by experts from the United States to prepare for the decommissioning work, a job so big that the planning needs to start now, in parallel with the efforts to contain the crisis.

The team includes experts from Westinghouse, whose majority owner is Toshiba; Shaw Power Group, a civil engineering firm; and the Babcock & Wilcox Company, an energy technology and services company, one of whose specialties is the disposal of hazardous materials.

The plans to take apart the reactors are complicated not only by the volatility of the situation but also by the uncertainty about the reactors’ condition once they finally cool. No one has ever decommissioned four damaged reactors at one power plant, let alone reactors rocked by a powerful earthquake and then swamped by a tsunami.

In fact, no Japanese nuclear power plant has ever been entirely decommissioned, which is one reason Westinghouse and Babcock & Wilcox – companies that helped shut down the damaged reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania after the accident there in 1979 – have joined the effort.

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Date set to remove wireless towers that have halted hotel demolition.

The Verizon Wireless cell phone towers that have stymied demolition of the former Executive Inn parking garage are slated to be removed on April 15.

Demolition of the structure, which must be removed to make way for a new hotel, was originally scheduled for mid-March.

Thursday, the city public works board voted unanimously to allow Verizon to install a temporary cell site on city property off Waterworks Road. The company will lease the space temporarily for $2,000 a month, according to Ed Zeimer, executive director of the city department of transportation.

The towers have been a thorn in the side of the planned Hyatt Place Hotel.

Local developer Martin Woodruff plans to build a 220-room, $30 million hotel in the place of the parking structure. The project will include underground parking for the hotel.

AT&T also had towers on the building, but removed them a week before the March demolition date. Verizon’s lingering equipment delayed the project to Monday.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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