Contractors queuing to undercut each other on City Hall contract that may not happen.

Fourteen contractors submitted bids to tear down the former City Hall in Troy, New York, as part of a proposed waterfront redevelopment, but it is not clear whether the demolition will even occur.

Ditonno & Sons of Albany was the apparent low bidder, with a price of $405,800, according to an aide to Mayor Harry Tutunjian. The next lowest bidder was Dan’s Hauling & Demo Inc. of Albany, at $416,000. The low bids were significantly less than the nearly $1 million the city had expected it would cost.

The highest bidder was Stamford Wrecking of Trumbull, Connecticut, $1.56 million.

The bids will be reviewed by the city engineer’s office and a recommendation sent to Tutunjian, said spokesman Jeff Pirro.

Read the full story here.

National Demolition Association to combine academy and convention in 2011

The National Demolition Association’s Demolition Academy – an intensive safety and management training event – will take place March 5-6, 2011 in Las Vegas, right before the opening of the National Demolition Association’s 38th Annual Convention at The Mirage. The decision to connect the two events was made to enable participants to take advantage of the convention, which runs March 5-8.

The Demolition Academy begins Saturday March 5 with the Demolition-Specific OSHA 10-Hour Certification. For those already holding their certification, there is concurrent in-depth training in basic industrial hygiene for the demolition industry, fall protection, and developing and utilizing a demolition engineering survey.

The Sunday March 6 session provides a continuation of the Demolition-Specific OSHA Certification of the previous day, or the option of full-day management training workshops in generational communicating, OSHA’s new crane standard, and a session called “When Disaster Strikes.”

More details here.

Organisers set provisional date for 2011 Demolition Summit & Awards.

Following on from the success of the 2010 World Demolition Awards, held as part of the 2010 World Demolition Summit, their 2011 counterparts are set to return to the Dutch city of Amsterdam, once again during the first week of November 2011.

Initial plans are for the Awards to be held on 4 November, once again at the five star Hotel Okura in the city centre, again as part of the 2011 World Demolition Summit.

Read more here.

Implosion enthusiasts set for a pre-Christmas double-whammy on 19 December.

According to legend, you wait ages for a London bus and then two come along together. Well, thanks to a quirk of timing and fate, blast watchers will enjoy a similar surfeit of riches on 19 December, with implosions scheduled to take place in both North and South America on the same day.

As we reported late last week, Fabio Bruno Pinto is currently putting the finishing touches to the planned implosion of Rio de Janeiro’s University Hospital. And we have learned this morning that the implosion of two metal buildings at the historic Imperial Sugar Company refinery in Sugar Land has been rescheduled for 7 am on the same day. The two metal buildings are located adjacent to the historic char house, an icon of Sugar Land. The char house will remain as part of the project, and the plans for the implosion remain as previously scheduled. The implosion was originally scheduled for Dec. 12.

Read more here.

Joint venture agreement sees UK demolition giant setting its sights on Russia.

A new joint venture created by St. Petersburg’s CrushMash and the U.K.’s Keltbray, a specialist in the field of demolition, aims to introduce a range of new technologies on the local market that will reduce damage to the environment and allow for greater levels of recycling.

The St. Petersburg group CrushMash began by focusing on the recycling of building waste, before expanding into demolition services. Further innovation is being introduced onto the local market through the application of Keltbray’s international experience and technology, with higher standards in safety and efficiency. New techniques and technologies enable the group to demolish sophisticated sites using new excavators with 40-metre excavators.

According to Steve Foster, the managing director of Keltbray Group, the company has plans to increase its turnover on the Russian market to about 5 to 6 billion rubles ($163 million to $195 million) per year, putting it on a level with its turnover in the U.K. Foster said, however, that the joint venture would not be seeking to win all tenders, preferring to limit itself to the most attractive.

Read the full story here.

Video captures this weekend’s demolition of Mondor towers.

We can tell you very little about this video aside from the fact that it’s in France, the contractor was hydraulic jacking specialist Ferrari Demolition, and that it took place yesterday. Lack of information aide, however, it’s a nice video of an under-utilised demolition method.

A look back at a demolition Christmas from 33 years ago.

Our irregular trips down memory lane have become an increasingly popular fixture here at DemolitionNews.com; and so, with Christmas now fast approaching, we thought we’d take a gentle meander bck down memory lane to December 1977. Queen Elizabeth II was still celebrating her silver jubilee year; punk rock was taking the world by storm; and – in Demolition & Dismantling magazine at least – lapels and sideburns were all about quantity rather than quality:

Staff evacuated as newspaper office roof collapses during demolition.

More than 100 staff at a UK regional newspaper office were evacuated this morning after a roof collapsed during demolition work.

The incident occurred at the city centre offices of Bristol News and Media, publishers of the Bristol Evening Post where work is being carried out to dismantle a redundant press hall.

The presses were removed from the hall after printing of the Evening Post and sister titles moved to Didcot but the hall itself was still in the process of being demolished.

Staff were ordered to leave the building immediately after the collapse occurred at around 10am this morning.

Read more here.

See the implosion of a Brazilian hospital before it happens.

During the recent Demolition Awards in Amsterdam, we had the pleasure of spending some time in the company of Fabio Bruno Pinto, explosive demolition specialist with Fábio Bruno Construções in Brazil.

Although he was in Europe primarily to talk about a previous contract – namely the implosion of Rio de Janeiro’s Presidio Helio Gomes prison – he revealed that he was in advanced stages of preparation for an equally impressive, pre-Christmas blast to take down the nearby Hospital Universitário do Fundão

Today, just nine days before he presses the button, Fabio has sent us an exclusive simulation video – produced with DemolitionNews sponsor Applied Science International – showing how the hospital will fall.

If the implosion is even half as impressive as the video simulation, Fabio Bruno Pinto will be an early contender for Eric Kelly’s Explosive Demolition of the Year crown in 2011.

We have thrown open the Forum so you can share your hopes and dreams.

In Lapland at this time of year, Santa and his elves are busily making his list and checking it twice. In the retail world, store owners are thanking the Almighty for some long-awaited income. And, in the world of journalism, every lazy reporter worth his salt is cobbling together a list of “Must Have” items for Christmas 2010.

Well, not only are we lazy, we’re also severely lacking in imagination so, instead of us boring you with what we think you should have for Christmas or look forward to in the New Year, we’re throwing it over to you.

We have set aside an area of the DemolitionNews Forum to allow you to add your own Christmas or New Years wishes. These can be work-related, industry-related, or as personal as you wish (although the first person to say they’re wishing for world peace will be automatically entered for the 2011 Miss World competition).

So please, hop on over to the Forum and let us know what you’d like. You never know; the Santa of the demolition world might just be watching!