Exclusive inside look at Cherry Demolition’s razing of Savoy Apartments Hotel in Houston.
At the beginning of October this year, Demolition News watched from afar as Cherry Demolition tackled the delicate demolition of the 103-year old Savoy Apartments Hotel in downtown Houston. Now, with the structure safely down, Cherry has provided us with this exclusive inside look at the challenges of this contract.
Cherry Demolition secured the contract to demolish the historic, seven-story Savoy Apartments Hotel, 1616 Main Street in downtown Houston, on Oct. 1. Cherry immediately began preparations for dismantling the brick building that had been built in 1906. The hotel went out of business in the late 1980s and began to decay badly after many years of non-occupancy and neglect.
The City of Houston declared the building structurally unsound and said it had to come down because it had become a safety hazard to pedestrians and to the City’s light rail line that runs directly in front of it.
With a caved in roof, the Savoy had begun to pull apart vertically due to a crack from the top to bottom of one of its walls. Pedestrians had reported bricks falling from the decaying structure just weeks before the demolition took place.
It isn’t often that Cherry is asked to demolish structures as old as the Savoy, particularly ones that are built almost entirely of brick. The 103-year-old brick structure had no concrete or steel columns but instead was held together by bricks.
Mike Dokell, Division Manager for Cherry’s Commercial, Residential and Interior Division, said, “the building was not a good candidate for implosion for several reasons, so we decided to use an excavator to take it down.”
Dokell said implosion was not chosen because the original hotel structure was attached to a 17-story addition and to a low-rise structure, both of which needed to remain intact.
“There were huge cracks in the hotel’s exterior brick walls, making the building very unsound. And, the back third of the building was in bad condition and a portion of the hotel roof had collapsed in 2001. The collapsed roof section also had caused the top five floors in that area to fall in,” he said.
Dokell also was concerned that imploding the building could have damaged the City’s light rail line. He said the light rail operator suspended a portion of its operations in front of the building at about 6 p.m. on Oct. 2 with plans to re-start Monday, Oct. 5.
“We had only a limited amount of time in which to do this job, so we needed to start right away,” he explained.
Cherry’s management procured plenty of backup equipment and parts so that the job could continue around the clock until completion.
“Our planning included backup for just about everything just in case something broke down,” he added.
In taking the building down safely, Cherry wanted to be sure there was no damage to Main Street, several large oak trees near the building, an adjacent 17-story addition and attached low-rise structure.
Cherry’s preparations included protecting the top of the attached low-rise structure from falling building debris. And, the company worked with Houston’s Police Department to maintain a 400-foot barrier around the structure.
“Houston Police already were on duty at the site before demolition began because the building was a safety hazard. They remained on patrol until after we were finished,” Dokell said. “And, the City’s fire department kept a stream of water on the building to eliminate dust throughout the process.”
Cherry began the demolition at about 10:30 p.m., Oct. 2, and used its PC600 Komatsu excavator equipped with a modified boom that has a 90-foot reach.
“Because the back of the building was so unstable, we began there by removing some of the more damaged sections before moving to the front side of the building,” he said. “When we got to the front, we placed crane mats in the street for protection and began the tedious job of dismantling the rest of the structure.”
Demolishing a brick structure is far different from taking down other, more conventional structures. Dokell explained that every brick is essentially a joint, so it becomes difficult to predict exactly how the building will fall while being demolished.
“We took this building down with a ‘nibble’ and ‘peck’ approach—that is, we took the building down slowly and methodically. We knocked out small chunks of the building before moving on to other sections. With this approach, we had better control of how the structure would come down,” he explained.
Cherry’s six-man crew worked around the clock—from 10:30 p.m. Friday until about 4 p.m. Sunday—to bring down the most critical portions of the building. Cherry accomplished its main objectives by Sunday afternoon, with no incidents and only minimal impact to nearby structures. At last, the building was no longer a safety hazard.
“We cleaned up the debris from the Main Street side so light rail operations could resume the next morning. There was only a small amount of glass to replace in the adjoining 17-story structure and there was no damage to the low-rise building,” he said.
“Operationally, the job was most successful, and we were extremely pleased with our workers’ efforts. Everyone worked together well as a team, and people from all of our other divisions helped with whatever we needed. We had the tools, equipment and people to do this job right and complete it on time.
“The job had been awarded late in the week, so a lot of our people had to work unusual hours. People gave up all kinds of weekend plans in order to get this done by Monday,” he added.
Cherry’s workers returned to the demolition site Monday morning to begin removing the middle third of the building. They completed this task by the end of the week, and the site was cleared of all debris by the end of the following week.
Because of the building’s instability, Cherry could only access the hotel’s basement and first and second floors before demolition began. Therefore, the company was unable to remove any salvageable or recyclable items or perform asbestos abatement work.
All materials from the demolition were taken to an approved landfill site for disposal because the building debris contained asbestos.
“It was terribly disappointing that we couldn’t salvage or recycle any materials from the building,” Leonard Cherry, owner and principal of Cherry, said. “For most of our demolition jobs, we remove salvageable items and then recycle about 88 percent of all building materials, including concrete, steel and other building components.”
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