Valley’s $32.4 million application ‘does not demonstrate any experience with demolition’.

Evaluations from two U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) employees described the Mahoning Valley’s $32.4 million housing proposal as incomplete, unclear and flawed.

The nine-community proposal sought to use $7.9 million of the funding to demolish 1,603 structures. The application needed to demonstrate the Valley had demolished at least 75 units in the past two years.

Youngstown, alone, took down 200 houses in the second half of 2009.

But the application “does not demonstrate any experience with demolition,” a requirement to be considered for funding, according to a seven-page summary compiled by two unnamed HUD employees who reviewed it.

“The applicant does not expressly detail the number of demolished units over the past 24 months,” one evaluator wrote in the review. “With demolition such a significant portion of the application, this could be an issue.”

Read more here.

Sacramento cancels contract over bogus bond from demolition company.

The city of Sacramento has terminated two contracts with a water meter installer officials and workers accuse of disappearing with tens of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus money.

The city canceled the contracts this week after a bonding company said a bond submitted by Advantage Demolition and Engineering was counterfeit.

The company won contracts from the city worth $3.4 million to install hundreds of water meters.

Read more here.

London’s Earls Court exhibition centre could be demolished according to Guardian reports.

Earls Court is one of London’s largest and oldest entertainment venues, and it will host volleyball matches at the 2012 London Olympics. But its rich and varied history could come to an end following the games, with new owners planning to demolish the venue to make way for a housing project.

The Earls Court exhibition centre and Olympia, a further multi-purpose venue also in west London, were bought by Capital and Counties – a subsidiary of the FTSE 100-listed property company Liberty International – earlier this month.

The company has revealed plans to bulldoze the Earls Court complex, which covers around 26 acres, and integrate it into a huge residential area that will straddle the two London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea and Hammersmith and Fulham.

Read more here.

Payroll clerk given five years for theft while demolition company owner was critically ill.

A payroll clerk was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison and ordered to repay $367,454 to the Fresno company from which she stole while the owner was in critical condition in the hospital.

Nora Arambula, 38, never said she was sorry for stealing from Kroeker Inc., a family-run demolition and recycling service on Chestnut Avenue south of Highway 99, Kroeker family members said.

Her theft led to nine employees being laid off, and it forced the company to borrow money to stay in business, family spokesman Jeff Kroeker told Judge Jon Nick Kapetan in Fresno County Superior Court.

Read the full story here.

Nuclear power plant enlists help from original electricians to help demolition works.

Electricians who helped to build the Dounreay nuclear power plant more than 40 years ago have been brought back in to aid in its demolition, according to BBC reports.

The workers assisted in identifying cabling before it was ripped out of the site’s prototype fast reactor.

Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL), which has dubbed the group “old timers”, said 24 kilometres (15 miles) of cables have been removed.

Read more here.

Low bid in US…same old, same old, yawn, yawn…

The Northwest Georgia Housing Authority got a dozen bids for demolition of the Hight Homes property Wednesday. Gateway Environmental Corp. of Highland, Ill., had the low base bid of $393,600. Local bidders included Evans Construction of Rome at $1,127,968 and Spriggs Construction of Rome, which bid $752,250.

Sandra Hudson, executive director of the housing authority, said no decision would be made on the bids until a redevelopment plan is approved.

If you can bear the depressive effect, you can read more here.

Work begins on demolition of Ballard’s popular Sunset Bowl.

Yesterday afternoon, demolition crews began tearing down Sunset Bowl, a popular Ballard bowling alley and neighborhood hangout that opened in 1957. The new owners, Avalon, plan to build an apartment complex on the land.

Onlookers gathered outside the chain link fence and watched, some with tears in their eyes, as Sunset Bowl came down.

Read more here or watch the video below.

The world of Mickey Mouse has confessed to a dark, secret love of explosives.

With the “sweet as apple pie” smiles, thinly-veiled moralising, and progressive takeover of the pop charts, Disney is already seen by many (myself included) as an all-consuming and pervasive sect intent on world domination.

And according to a news item on the Disney website suggesting that the company is the world’s second-largest purchaser of industrial explosives, it appears that there might be some basis for those fears.

Read the full story here.

Building voted the most hated in England is to be bought by local authority and razed.

Bournemouth borough council is to spend around £7.5m to rid the Dorset resort of the Waterfront leisure complex. Featuring dark glass and a wavy roof designed to represent the sea, the development, also known as the Imax building, caused an outcry when it was opened in 1998 owing to both its looks and the fact that it blocked a beloved view across the water to the Purbeck Hills.

The cinema, the centrepiece of the complex, did not open for almost three years, closed again soon afterwards and was not re-opened.

In 2005 the Channel 4 programme Demolition asked people which building they would like knocked down and the Imax was judged first in line in England.

Read more here.

Leading UK contractor believes now is the time for frugality and consolidation.

John Thompson, chairman of Thompsons of Prudhoe, says it has been a difficult 12 months for his business with turnover well down on the previous year. However, he believes the steps it has taken in 2009 will stand it in good stead for another challenging year.

And John Thompson, the son of company founder Bill Thompson, believes maintaining a close eye on the economy’s ongoing difficulties will be the key to the company’s success.

The 60-year-old firm, which operates in demolition, construction and quarrying sectors, saw revenues fall from £30m in 2008 to £22m last year.

“We have to be careful in the current environment,” he said in a frank interview. There is not the confidence around and we have to keep a tight control on costs. This is not the time to be cavalier – it’s the time to be frugal and consolidate.”

Read the full interview here.