Project Profile – Cherry Tackles Houston Savoy…

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 1Cherry 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 2Cherry’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.

Cherry 3“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.”

Lookout – TV towers about to fall…

TV antenna on Denver’s Lookout Mountain could fall by year end.

Antennas still sprout from Lookout Mountain on the metro area’s western shoulder, but the three tallest towers are slated for demolition, ending a decade-long battle.

The first to go will be the KUSA-Channel 9 tower, followed by the KMGH-Channel 7 tower and then the KCNC-Channel 4 tower.

“The short answer is that by July 2010, all of those towers will be down,” said Don Perez, general manager of the Lake Cedar Group.

The consortium of local TV stations, which also includes KTVD-Channel 20, has erected a 222 metre tower that holds all the stations’ digital equipment.

The Channel 9 and Channel 7 towers should be down by the end of the year, Perez said, unless weather gets in the way.

Read more here.

NYC calls end to simultaneous demolition/asbestos work…

No more simultaneous demolition and asbestos abatement in New York following ruling.

The New York City Council has voted to prohibit building crews from performing demolitions at the same time as asbestos abatement.

The bill addresses problems that were discovered after two firefighters died responding to a 2007 fire in a condemned skyscraper, believed to be the Deutsche Bank building, that was undergoing both demolition and abatement.

Officials later said that doing both simultaneously made the building a death trap for firefighters.

Read more here.

Executive Inn II – The Return…

Demolition work is underway at the Evansville Executive Inn.

The first swings of the wrecking claw are hitting Evansville’s Executive Inn Tuesday morning. Demolition on the one-story portion of the hotel began at 8:00 a.m. Crews will first work to take down the indoor pool area, office and ballroom space before moving on to the larger tower portion of the building.

The immediate demolition will allow for prep work to begin on the new downtown arena which will sit in the footprint of the old hotel. The front portion of the hotel will be remodeled and renamed in the coming year.

Read more and view the video here.

Basingstoke demolition underway…

Demolition of a prominent Basingstoke eyesore has begun.

Rye Demolition has started the serious business of pulling down Brook House, in Alencon Link, Basingstoke, Hants..

The company has been stripping fixtures, fittings and asbestos from the building since October 19, and, after removing 14 huge skips full of material, the firm has now started using a mechanical claw to dismantle the structure.

Read more here.

Webcam watches stadium demolition…

James Madison University’s Bridgeforth Stadium is being demolished; watch it live.

A construction project designed to transform Bridgeforth Stadium into the pre-eminent college football environment at the Football Championship Subdivision is under way. When completed in the fall of 2011, the stadium capacity will be about 25,000, an increase of 10,000 seats, and sight lines will be improved for all seats on the west side. In addition, the west side will feature a club level, hospitality suites and a new media center.

Construction will be done in phases so that Bridgeforth Stadium will still be the home of the Dukes in 2010. Between the end of the 2009 season and the start of the 2010 season, the old west stands will be torn down and rebuilt. Following the 2010 season, construction will continue on the hospitality suites and club section, and begin on the upper deck of the west side and on the north end zone.

A webcam is following all the action – Click here to see the latest view of work in progress. (The image changes each minute but you have to refresh your browser manually)

You MUST listen to this…

Radio 4 programme Brick by Brick offers unique take on deconstruction.

Most TV and radio programmes that feature demolition tend to focus on the crash and bang of explosive works. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw or heard a programme that captured the delicacy of a facade retention and deconstruction project.

So the Brick by Brick programme produced by Katie Burningham at Falling Tree and broadcast earlier this morning on BBC Radio 4 was both unique and refreshing in roughly equal measure. The programme featured an inside look at the work of Demolition Company of the Year Safedem at Aberdeen’s Marischal College.

If you missed it, it will be available for seven days via BBC iPlayer. Although it may take a few hours to appear, you can hear it here.

Fired contractor seeks compensation…

Dore & Associates launches legal bid for compensation.

Dore & Associates of Bay City, Michigan is seeking $1.7 million in damages for losses stemming from its work in tearing down Ogg Hall, a campus fixture that had housed generations of students. The state caused expensive delays in its work and then unfairly fired Dore from the job, the company contends.

The state Department of Administration says, however, that it fired Dore & Associates in March 2008 after a series of contract violations and safety problems and that it doesn’t owe the company a dime.

The State Claims Board on Wednesday is expected to consider denying the company damages. If it does, Dore & Associates would likely file a lawsuit seeking them, chief executive officer Arthur Dore said.

The state hired the firm to demolish Ogg’s two towers but the project faced a series of problems.

First, some construction materials caught fire at the top of one of the towers in December 2007 while five of the company’s workers were inside. The workers were not able to get down the stairs, so they climbed down scaffolding set up outside the building to safety.

The final straw came on March 18, 2008, when a large block of concrete fell from one of the towers and crushed a worker’s parked vehicle below. The state terminated Dore’s contract the next day.

Read the full story here.

Finns invent whole new level of stupidity…

Demolition stunt goes horribly wrong for Finnish version of Jackass.

Just how bored do you have to be to think that being stood on top of an imploding building is a good idea? Well, judging by this video, there must be some very high levels of boredom in Finland as what appears to be the Finnish take on the Jackass TV programme goes horribly and painfully wrong.

Warning, this video contains graphic scenes of surgery that are not for the squeamish!!

Rogue contractor faces jail…

Rogue demolition contractor ordered to pay back more than £176,000 in illegal profits.

William Reidy was sentenced to a 16-month prison sentence in 2007 for dumping waste, including asbestos. Now he must sell land and houses to repay the money he made breaking the law to boost profits for his firm Space Making Developments.

Bradford Crown Court today gave Reidy six months to find the cash or go to jail for 27 months. The Crown and Reidy’s defence team agreed he benefited by more than £1.7 million from his activities.

Read more here.