Unnamed buyer could bring Continental Airlines building back from the brink.

Tampa International Airport officials have halted demolition plans for at least a week on the former Continental Airlines reservation center fter a Realtor with a local client expressed interest in leasing the building, possibly for $600,000 annually for 10 years.

Jones Lang LaSalle, which is representing an interested party from the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, toured the vacant building and is discussing a 10 to 15 year lease, airport director Louis Miller said Tuesday before a staff meeting.

Read more here.

Environmentalists welcome decision to demolish Carmel dam.

Government officials and a Monterey water company have reached an agreement to tear down a dam on the Carmel River that environmental groups say blocks the passage of endangered steelhead trout.

Under the deal reached Monday, California American Water, which owns the San Clemente Dam, will contribute $50 million toward its demolition.

Federal and state agencies will work to secure the project’s remaining $34 million cost.

Read more here.

Demolition set to commence at Baltimore’s former retail district.

The Baltimore Development Corp. will celebrate the demolition of several buildings in the so-called superblock Thursday to make way for a planned redevelopment bringing new retail, office and residential space to the area.

The soon-to-be-razed properties on Baltimore’s west side will be sold to a partnership between the Cordish Co. and Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation as part of a deal struck between them and the Baltimore Development Corp. in August 2007.

The properties, in the 200 block of Lexington Street, are just part of the city’s larger ambitions for the superblock, once a thriving retail district that has fallen into disrepair. The area is considered a key link between the city’s west side and central business district.

Read more here.

The Imploders’ TV cameras are trained on a Texas feed mill this week.

Eden’s defunct Concho Feed Mill will star in an upcoming episode of “The Imploders,” a new reality show from the TLC cable channel that follows the Idaho-based Kelly family, operators of Advanced Explosives Demolition.

Kathy Keane, Eden’s economic development coordinator, said she has been working on the project since about 17 December. “It came as a tip from the Texas Department of Agriculture that ‘The Imploders’ were looking for demolition projects,” she said. “I told them we had some structures here that might work. Now just weeks later, we’re in the middle of filming.”

The Colorado-based owner of the mill, Wes E. Klett of Anipro/Xtraformance Feeds, who already had begun arrangements to demolish the nearly 58-year-old structure, agreed to let the TV team take over, Keane said.

Read more here.

New Lawson Demolition photos highlight UK’s ongoing weather problems.

About a week ago, we asked readers to send in their snowy photos to mark one of those rare occasions when the UK (together with large parts of the US and Europe) was covered in a blanket of snow. This was intended to be a brief and light-hearted way to ease readers back to work after the festive period.

However, seven days later and the snow’s still there (in fact, we had another flurry here earlier this morning) and still the photos come in.

This latest batch from Lawson Demolition clearly illustrate just how cold the UK climate is at present; and just how difficult work conditions have become.

City officials climb behind the levers to kickstart Lorain city redevelopment.

With backhoes and hard hats, Lorain city officials tore down the first abandoned home targeted by the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

Lorain Mayor Tony Krasienko said yesterday’s demolition officially kicked off the start of the program, which is funded by a $3.03 million federal grant. Nearly 45 homes in the city will be demolished and another 20 to 30 will be revitalized, he said.

“There’s no doubt that we have a need for it,” Krasienko said. “We’re going to see this area improve just by removal of this nuisance.”

Read more here or view the video below.

New video tour of Port of Long Beach highlights importance of C&D waste recycling.

We have, in the past, been vocal in our criticism of some US contractors’ somewhat ardy approach to the subject of construction and demolition waste recycling.

So it’s pleasing to see this new video on the demolition and construction works taking place at the Port of Long Beach in which the main contractor is achieving European-standard 95% recycling levels.

Police renew appeal to prevent vandals becoming exposed to asbestos.

Vandals are exposing themselves to asbestos by ignoring police warnings not to enter the sites of derelict buildings being knocked down in Hull.

Humberside Police have renewed appeals to people to stay away from the old Heron Frozen Foods site on Walcott Street in Hull which is being demolished.

Officers are concerned that vandals are persistently ignoring signs to keep out and exposing themselves to potential hazards to carry out attacks.

They have also asked people to keep their eyes open and report anyone they see sneaking into any building site, because the same dangers exist in other areas of half-demolished structures.

Read more here.

TV bosses have confirmed that home of TV’s longest-running soap opera is to be demolished.

It has been the scene of murders and rapes, assaults and catfights, marriages and divorces, unexpected arrivals and dramatic departures. But the street in which TV’s longest-running soap opera – Coronation Street- is facing the wrecking ball as the set is moved from Quay Street in Manchester city centre to a site near Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium after ITV resumed talks to relocate its offices.

Following the appointment of new ITV chairman Archie Norman, negotiations have begun again to relocate the soap’s famous pub and cobbled streets to the £600m Media City UK in Salford Quays.

Read the full story here.

Last-minute entry steals the plaudits in our snowman competition.

As regular readers will be aware, we attempted last week to make the best of the terrible weather that had brought work to a standstill across the UK, Europe and on into many parts of the US by challenging demolition workers to create a snowman.

Well, thanks to generous offers from two readers, we were inundated with entries for what (ironically) turned out to be a hotly contested affair. As arbiters of all things snowy, we were looking for a mix of style and substance, size and stature and, ideally, something of a demolition theme.

So we’re delighted to announce that our winning snowman, which was in fact that last entry received before the contest closed on Friday night, was from Barry Morgan in Faversham, Kent. As you can see below, not only does Barry’s entry display some superb snow sculpting facial features, it is the only entry we received which would get past an HSE workwear inspection.

Our congratulations go to Barry while £100 (donated by Button-Linguard’s Roy Gibbons and a mysterious benefactor known only as GoldenGirl) is heading for the Cancer Research charity.