You’ve seen the raw video; now see the official movie.
Earlier this week, we brought you a raw video of the implosion of the University Hospital in Rio de Janeiro and promised that we would bring you the official video just as soon as it landed.
Well, thanks to our Brazilian compadre Fabio Bruno Pinto, that movie just landed:
Reports suggest financial difficulties for company behind Texas Stadium implosion.
It is just nine months since A&R Demolition was headline news for its role in the implosion of the Texas Stadium. But with work halted on its contract to demolish another major sporting stadium, the company is back in the media spotlight; and this time it’s for very different wrong reasons.
Work has apparently ground to a halt on Corpus Christi’s Memorial Coliseum as city officials undertake investigations into why the contract is running behind schedule and, more worryingly, into the financial viability of the Del Valle company.
The city is reportedly working with A&R to work out the more than $30,000 it owes in fines for not getting this project done on time. There were other periods of work stoppage where city officials told us that A&R was having a tough time meeting its payroll.
The city says that A&R Demolition and its bonding company are working to hire a subcontractor to finish the work here.
Read more here.
Highest bid is four times higher than lowest as low bids spiral.
The Warren County Commissioners were baffled Monday afternoon when the high bid for the demolition of a Youngsville property was fours times higher than the lowest bid.
During their work session, Commissioners John Eggleston and John Bortz opened bids for the demolition of the commercial property. Four bids were received, each with a base bid and a less expensive alternative. Each bid was to include a base bid for demolishing the building and backfilling the void to ground level as well as an alternative bid for demolition, backfilling only 24 inches and installing a security fence.
The bids were:
Keith White Excavating, Warren, with $34,947 for the base bid and $29,974 for the alternative.
Whalen Contractors Inc., Franklin, with $81,407 for the base bid and $73,370 for the alternative.
Earthmovers Unlimited, Kylertown, Pa., with $49,423 for the base bid and $41,873 for the alternative.
6v Excavation, Bradford, with $19,747 for the base bid and $19,372 for the alternative.
“Wow. There’s a big gap between those bids. I don’t understand it,” Eggleston said.
Since 6v Excavating had the lowest bid, county grants administrator Lorri Dunlap said she would review the bid to make sure it meets the requirements for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding.
Read more here.
Old Hardin sugar factory set to fall.
With the dust barely settled and the recriminations over this weekend’s failed attempt to shoot a pair of refinery buildings at Sugarland, another sugar factory is set to fall.
The old Holly Sugar factory in Hardin, a landmark since it opened in 1937, is being torn down to provide new equipment storage for a Billings demolition and salvage business.
Amber Yochum of Yochum Contracting said the giant industrial building won’t totally disappear. “We really want to leave the stack, if it is safe,” she said. “It’s a monument to the people of Hardin.”
Although still mulling ideas for the site, Yochum said the company will involve the city of Hardin as plans progress. “We have a lot of ideas,” she said. “We don’t know which we’ll decide to use.”
Read more here.
Package to decommission nuclear reactors signal early Christmas for UK contractors.
Leading online UK construction news portal Construction Enquirer reports that the companies behind the decommissioning of the country’s ageing Magnox reactors are inviting firms to bid for a £300m demolition and earthmoving framework deal.
The huge package of work over the next five years will be spread across 10 sites in the UK and be handled by Magnox South and Magnox North, put in control of the decommissioning projects.
Magnox said it may extend the framework by an extra three years taking the expected demolition packages spend to £286m and asbestos removal to cost £78m.
Read more here.
IDE President heeds our call to help the homeless.
Here at Demolition News Towers, we are a cynical bunch with little time for talk of spirituality or fate. But there are times when it seems that a greater power is at work behind the scenes, pushing the buttons to ensure that our destiny meshes together in an appropriate if sometimes chaotic fashion.
Take, for example, the fact that DemolitionNews.com was the brainchild of new IDE President John Woodward and our own Mark Anthony just over two years ago. Exactly 2,000 posts later, the stars of these two have aligned once again.
A few weeks back, Mark Anthony put out a pre-Christmas call requesting unwanted branded clothing to help London’s homeless through what is fast becoming a record-breaking and bitterly cold winter. One of the first to heed that call was John Woodward, with the promise of jackets, hats and a variety of t-shirts and sweatshirts.
But the weather had other ideas. And John’s donation became snowbound in the bleak Midlands. Other people may have merely placed the clothing back in their wardrobe alongside an impressive collection of Clements & Church suits. But Woodward is not other people.
Instead, he leapt into his car and took his unwanted but no-doubt welcome clothing to a homeless shelter in his native Wolverhampton, allowing us to close the loop and make our 2,000th post about the same person that inspired our first (and a good many since).
And the fact that this strange quirk of fate coincides with the Winter Solstice and the first lunar eclipse to coincide with it for 400 years just makes us wonder just who is pulling the strings…
Work to demolish 53-year old baseball stadium gets underway.
Heavy machinery began dismantling the infield stands of the former Hiroshima Municipal Baseball Stadium in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward yesterday, exposing the foundations of the old stadium, which closed its gates to the public in September.
The stadium was the home ground to the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, and a local citizens’ group has filed an injunction against the demolition work with the Hiroshima District Court.
The municipal government hopes to complete the demolition of the first-base stands and the seats behind the home plate by the end of fiscal 2010 and finish the entire operation by next fiscal year, except for a part of the right-field stands, which will be preserved as a monument for future generations. The area is scheduled to be reopened as a public space by the spring of 2013.
Read more here.
Communist-era landmark faces demolition in Albanian capital.
The pyramids in Egypt have stood for millennia, a symbol of longevity in an ever-changing world. The landmark pyramid in the Albanian capital, however, looks set to have a somewhat shorter lifespan.
Citing the need for a new parliament building, the Albanian government wants to tear down one of the capital’s main communist-era landmarks. The Government gave the go ahead in late October, but faces strong resistance from architects, opposition parties and the general public.
“We are the only country with a parliament seat consisting of a group of buildings that are inconveniently positioned one from another,” Prime Minister Sali Berisha said in early November, at the first meeting of the New Parliament Building Committee.
The existing parliamentary complex “does not hold up to the standards of parliaments in EU countries or of those in the region”, Parliament Speaker Jozefina Topalli said.
Read more here.
Delicate work fells Rolls Royce factory building…but contractor can’t show anyone
Imagine undertaking the delicate demolition of a four-storey administration building owned by one of the world’s best known engine brands. Imagine that the building to come down was just ten metres from a sensitive neighbor, meaning that a unique scaffold needed to be affixed to the façade to protect that neighbor from dust and vibration. And imagine that this contract went off without a hitch, earning plaudits from the client and the main contractor. But then imagine that the sensitivity of that neighbor prevented you from showing people just what you’d achieved.
Welcome to the world of Chris Doyle, contracts manager with Nottingham-based CMEC Demolition, who has just completed precisely that contract, taking down an administration building at Rolls Royce’s marine engine facility, located next door to a Ministry of Defence (MOD) nuclear facility.
“Working with main contractor Clegg Construction and the MOD, we developed a safe system of work to ensure operative safety, whilst ensuring that the nuclear facility could remain in use,” Doyle says. “We then set about developing a safe method of demolition, utilizing a Volvo high reach excavator to cut the building down a section at a time. To further minimise dust and vibration, each section was lifted to the ground and then removed from the demolition area. All arisings were then put through our crusher and left on site for use by the client; both Rolls Royce and Clegg Construction were very happy with our work.”
Thanks for that Chris – Just a shame there are no photos of what sounds like a fascinating contract.
Dick Green oversees explosive demolition of coal storage plant.
We were so busy yesterday following the emerging news from the failed sugar refinery blast that we actually missed a successful blast rather closer to home.
Thankfully, IDE President John Woodward WAS Paying attention and has just alerted us to this video of Ron Hull Demolition and IndEx taking down the coal storage plant at Welbeck Colliery.
