2002 Lambeau Field skybox accident went under radar.

A little-known accident during the Lambeau Field renovation in 2002 caused significant damage to the stadium and resulted in a court fight that continued until years later.

Repair costs at the home of the Green Bay Packers topped more than $1 million, and a taxpayer-funded insurance plan filed suit to avoid getting stuck with $200,000 of the repair bill.

Officials at the state-operated Local Government Property Insurance Fund will not disclose how they ended the legal squabble with construction contractor Spirtas Wrecking Co. — a battle resolved last year through an out-of-court settlement.

Green Bay city records show that Spirtas crews caused damage to city-owned Lambeau Field while demolishing and removing the stadium’s old skyboxes in February 2002.

According to records at City Hall and in the court case, crews accidentally dropped demolition materials in the stadium’s bowl, damaging the arena’s structural steel, concrete foundation and bleacher seats.

Read more here.

Eric Kelly oversees Athens implosion.

A historical building in the centre of Athens was destroyed in 14 seconds on Sunday. The Navy Veterans Fund building was demolished on in a controlled explosion.

Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis decided the building must go so as to create a new square covering 1,300 sq meters in an area of the city, where crime and squalor have become rife over the last few years.

The derelict building was abandoned from the’80s and was bought by the municipality of Athens as part of a programme aimed at improving the city centre.

Key ruling due in Ground Zero tower fire case

The three men charged in the deaths of two firefighters in a blaze at a contaminated, condemned ground zero skyscraper say they’re scapegoats. Prosecutors say the men are to blame for disregarding and covering up a major safety hazard.

A judge was expected to rule Friday on whether to toss out manslaughter and other charges against Mitchel Alvo, Salvatore DePaola and Jeffrey Melofchik. They are the only people facing criminal charges after a fire that led city officials to acknowledge oversight mistakes.

Alvo, 58, DePaola, 56, Melofchik, 48, and the John Galt Corp., which was helping to take down the former Deutsche Bank building, have pleaded not guilty. If convicted, the men could face up to 15 years in prison.

The building — just across the street from the World Trade Center’s south tower — was heavily damaged and filled with toxic debris when the tower collapsed into it on Sept. 11, 2001. A laborious process of dismantling the now government-owned building has taken years.

On Aug. 18, 2007, a construction worker’s careless smoking sparked a fire that tore through several stories of the building.

Firefighters contended with a roster of hazards, including deactivated sprinklers, blocked stairwells, an air system that was supposed to control toxins but ended up concentrating smoke, and a break in a crucial firefighting water pipe called a standpipe.

With the standpipe severed, it took 67 minutes for the firefighters to get water by other means to fight the blaze.

Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino became trapped on the burning 14th floor. They died of smoke inhalation after their oxygen tanks ran out.

Read the full story here.

UK Government launches Plasterboard Sustainability Action Plan.

Yesterday saw the official launch of the Government’s new Plasterboard Sustainability Action Plan.

To coincide with the launch, Parliamentary Under-Secretary Lord Henley said: “The plasterboard industry has shown a great willingness over the last few years to develop voluntary commitments to reduce the impact of plasterboard manufacturing and waste. As a widely used construction product, it is crucial to build upon these successes and further improve the sustainability of this product throughout its life-cycle and supply chain.

Sustained collaboration across the plasterboard industry, with Government, has led to this robust Action Plan to further improve the social and environmental impacts of plasterboard, with the establishment of the Plasterboard Sustainability Partnership providing a strong and co-ordinated means of implementation.

Many improvement measures have been agreed, ranging from safer handling of plasterboards to reducing waste through design and training of specialist contractors.

This Action Plan will help us achieve the overarching objective of leading the world in sustainable construction, production and consumption, as stated in the joint industry and Government Strategy for Sustainable Construction.

Many of the actions are already underway; demonstrating a strong commitment across the Plasterboard Sustainability Par tnership to ensure the Action Plan is delivered. I look forward to seeing significant progress, catalysed through this Action Plan, and the Plasterboard Sustainability Partnership over the coming years.”

Download your free copy of the Action Plan here.

Caterpillar to sell used equipment via Mascus

Construction and demolition equipment giant Caterpillar has signed a co-operation agreement with Mascus (www.mascus.co.uk), a prominent online market-place for used equipment.

Caterpillar has been using the internet as an important communication channel for many years, and understands the importance of this media for the future. In addition to the main portal www.cat.com, Cat was also one of the first manufacturers in the world to build a used equipment website (www.catused.com) to help customers locate and review quality used equipment available for sale from Cat dealers around the world.

To strengthen Cat’s used equipment sales, a partnership has been formed with Mascus www.mascus.co.uk, a leading online market place for used equipment. Used equipment inventory from Cat dealers will be found on Mascus, increasing the visibility on the web.

For entirely selfish reasons, this is great news for DemolitionNews.com too since Mascus provides our used equipment coverage and has long been a supporter of our activities.

Read more here.

Stockton eyesore building to be demolished

A 50-year-old derelict office block on Teesside which has been vandalised over the years is to be demolished.

After years of legal wrangling, Stockton Council is to bulldoze Billingham House and will charge the cost to its owner Bizzy B Management.

The former ICI headquarters, in Belasis Avenue, has been attacked by arsonists and vandals over the years and is considered an eyesore by locals.

A council spokesman said: “The Council has been working with Bizzy B Management Ltd for a number of years and has previously taken legal action following repeated concerns from members of the public about the state of the building.

It will be pulled down in the New Year when a contractor has been found.

Read more here.

A look back to explosive demolition in the “good ol’ days”

Based upon the reaction we received following the reproduction of an old edition of the Demolition & Dismantling magazine (and there are more editions to come), there is a great appetite out there for demolition nostalgia.

Those that were lucky enough to attend the recent Institute of Demolition Engineers Autumn conference in London will know that vice-president and events co-ordinator John Woodward had organised a look back at an explosive demolition project from the 1970s (1977 to be precise). The presentation came in the shape of a video salvaged from obscurity by demolition consultant Bruce Atkinson FIDE of DemConsult.

Bruce takes up the story:

The following film is a non-technical home movie of a single day operation to demolish a large block of flats in Birkenhead. It takes place in 1977 at a time when the current reams of regulations and legislation now governing the industry, and captures the atmosphere of the time with long hair, flared trousers, wide lapels.
This was also a time when political correctness had not yet been invented, and the industry inhabited a number of larger than life characters. There were no mobile phones, no site phones, no site audits, method statements, risk assessments, design calculations or drawings. This was a time when fuel and oxygen was ordered via the nearest pay phone and wages were collected from the local Post Office at the end of the week.

The film shows a typical demolition operation of its day, covering a whole range of emotions: anticipation; panic, tension; and finally relief.

Having now watched the film a few times, we’re certainly relieved that blasting practices and health and safety have improved in the past three decades; and we’re even more relieved that those horrendous moustaches were consigned to the dark corners of fashion history. Enjoy.

Day Trip to Birkenhead from Mark Anthony on Vimeo.

Demolition of Scarborough’s Athletic Ground in Seamer Road imminent.

A tender has been put out by Scarborough Council inviting companies to submit bids to level the much-loved stadium, where football was first played way back in 1898.

The news puts an abrupt end to any lingering faint hopes that football could one day return to the venue.

Since Scarborough FC folded in 2007, the once-proud arena has fallen into a state of disrepair, and been subjected to regular bouts of vandalism.

The council bought the stadium in 2008 for £1.335 million, but Hilary Jones, the council’s strategic director, said that safety concerns meant the local authority had no other option than to bring an end to well over a century of history.

“We have to make it safe, we’ve been really concerned,” she said. “We’ve had real problems in terms of people breaking in. We’ve had to do all sorts of work. As soon as we make it safe somebody else finds a way in and then there’s something else we need to sort out. We decided the best thing to do is to permanently take out the things that are dangerous. Buildings are crumbling.”

Read more here.

Demolition work to begin next week at fire-hit Hastings Pier

The BBC is reporting that demolition work is to begin at Hastings Pier to make it safer after a fire destroyed the structure.

Hastings Borough Council said it was using emergency powers to remove debris because the pier’s owner, Ravenclaw Investments, had taken no action.

The authority said it was also having to employ a security company to stop people walking under the pier which closed to the public in 2006.

The fire on 5 October destroyed 95% of the upper part of the attraction.

Read more here.

Wyoming welcomes GM funding to demolish stamping plant that closed in 2009

The General Motors Corp. stamping plant in Wyoming has won $3.75 million from Old GM to clean up, tear down and get on with the site’s next life.

“We’re very excited it’s moving forward,” said Wyoming’s Deputy City Manager Barb VanDuren. “The longer a plant sits there, it just goes to more and more degradation. We’re ready to get this plant demolished, and ready to get something else built there.”

The cash won’t come directly to the city, though. For months, officials have been mulling ways to reuse the 75-year-old plant, once funds came through to help pay for it. Most feel it needs to be demolished, with a new industrial park to take its place.

Wyoming officials had worried the aging stamping plant would be mothballed by GM, and held in limbo indefinitely. Decisions on vacated GM plants also are swirling around 12 other Michigan cities. They share the state’s $158.7 million cut of the total U.S. fund, $773 million put up by Old GM as part of its bankruptcy settlement.

Read the full story here.