Houston-based Cherry recently won a 2010 APEX (Award for Project Excellence) Award from the Houston chapter of Associated General Contractors (AGC).

AGC honored Cherry for its safe and efficient demolition of the Savoy Hotel in downtown Houston in October 2009. The City of Houston had declared 103-year-old building structurally unsound and a safety hazard. Cherry’s challenges included determining the safest way to bring down the old hotel without damaging an attached 17-story addition and low-rise structure, the City’s Metro light rail lines on Main Street and surrounding trees. Crews also had to move quickly to complete the most critical portion of the demolition in order to meet a rapid timetable set by Metro.

“We are exceedingly pleased to be recognized with one of our industry’s most prestigious awards,” said Mike Dokell, manager of Cherry’s Commercial, Interior and Residential Demolition Division. “The Savoy hotel demolition was challenging on many levels, and it was the perfect project to demonstrate how effectively we could work as a team and coordinate our activities with a large number of governmental and regulatory agencies.”

Exclusive video of Erith Group presentation to European Demolition Association.

David Darsey, managing director of Erith Group and president of the National Federation of Demolition Contractors, continued his globetrotting last week with a whistle-stop visit to the EDA conference in Sweden.

Darsey – who has already given speeches as far afield as the US and Sardinia in recent months – was in Stockholm to provide a presentation on the technical demolition and facade retention works carried out by his company at the world famous Cafe Royal in London.

In this exclusive video, Darsey and his colleague Stuart Accleton give the low-down on this highly complex contract – which has been shortlisted in the forthcoming 2010 Demolition Awards – and to show off a superb 3D modeling of the works in progress.

Cafe Royal Complete from Mark Anthony on Vimeo.

EDA Autumn Conference marks official launch of new guidance notes.

It has been several years in the making and has been the subject of more discussion and rewrites than a pre-Election political manifesto, but the European Demolition Association’s own High Reach Guidance was officially unveiled last week in all its multi-lingual glory.

Stefano Panseri, part of the EDA’s technical committee and the driving force behind the new document, unveiled the guidance on the European Demolition Association stand at the DEMCON exhibition in Sweden. And we were there to capture his speech:

High Reach Guidance Launch from Mark Anthony on Vimeo.

High reach, zero-tailswing excavator makes worldwide debut.

Here at Demolition News, we tend to avoid getting too involved in the equipment side of things. Frankly, there are others in the world that are better equipped to report on this side of things and the thought of getting excited by an additional 2kW of power and a new seat belt makes our eyes glaze over.

However, every once in a while, a machine comes along that is worthy of notice; and this new high reach, zero-tailswing machine – the result of a Volvo Construction Equipment GB and Kocurek Excavators joint venture – surely falls into that category.

To read the full details of this exciting new machine, please head over to DemolishDismantle who kindly brought this to our attention.

Your chance to own a limited edition DEMCON 2010 edition t-shirt and baseball cap.

Demolition News returned from the combined EDA Conference/DEMCON exhibition with bags bulging with business cards, paperwork and other goodies that included an exclusive DEMCON 2010 t-shirt and a limited edition DEMCON 2010 baseball cap.

Now, having been on a crash diet that has seen his weight plummet to that of a small kitten, an XL t-shirt is of little use to our editor Mark Anthony. And we have told him numerous times in the past that baseball caps make him look American.

With that in mind, we’re offering one lucky reader the chance to win both by answering one simple question.

During the gala dinner at the EDA Conference/DEMCON fair, a member of the Drilling and Sawing Association described the demolition business as which cartoon character?

A: Goofy
B: Mickey Mouse
C: Homer Simpson

Please send your answers to us via email (manthony@markanthonypublicity.co.uk). The winner will be drawn at random from the correct answers received. The draw will take place on 1 October 2010.

Nine months after a massive quake hit Haiti, only two percent of debris has been cleared.

The quake that his Haiti on 12 January 2010 gave rise to an international outpouring of concern and charitable donations. But according to an Associated Press article, nine months on the country is struggling to clear the debris left by the disaster, hampering recovery and rebuilding work.

From the dusty rock mounds lining the streets to a National Palace that looks like it’s vomiting concrete from its core, rubble is one of the most visible reminders of Haiti’s devastating earthquake.

Rubble is everywhere in this capital city: cracked slabs, busted-up cinder blocks, half-destroyed buildings that still spill bricks and pulverized concrete onto the sidewalks. Some places look as though they have been flipped upside down, or are sinking to the ground, or listing precariously to one side.

By some estimates, the quake left about 25 million cubic metres (33 million cubic yards) of debris in Port-au-Prince — more than seven times the amount of concrete used to build the Hoover Dam. So far, only about two percent has been cleared, which means the city looks pretty much as it did a month after the Jan. 12 quake.

Government officials and outside aid groups say rubble removal is the priority before Haiti can rebuild. But the reasons why so little has been cleared are complex. And frustrating.

Heavy equipment has to be shipped in by sea. Dump trucks have difficulty navigating narrow and mountainous dirt roads. An abysmal records system makes it hard for the government to determine who owns a dilapidated property. And there are few sites on which to dump the rubble, which often contains human remains.

Also, no single person in the Haitian government has been declared in charge of the rubble, prompting foreign nongovernmental organizations to take on the task themselves. The groups are often forced to fight for a small pool of available money and contracts — which in turn means the work is done piecemeal, with little coordination.

Read the full story here.

Exclusive video of IDE vice-president’s workshop at DEMCON 2010.

In addition to the presentations hosted by the European Demolition Association, the DEMCON 2010 exhibition in Stockholm played host to a series of seminars, the most interesting of which was the “Demolition Innovations – 2010 and Beyond” round-table workshop hosted by Institute of Demolition Engineers’ vice president, John Woodward.

Although the setting was hardly conducive to high quality sound recording, we managed to capture the key points on Woodward’s presentation and some of the key discussion points:

Demolition Innovations from Mark Anthony on Vimeo.

Video of the people and machines of the EDA conference and DEMCON show.

Late last week, delegates from more than a dozen countries descended up the Swedish city of Stockholm for a unique event; a combined European Demolition Association Autumn conference and the inaugural DEMCON exhibition of demolition equipment. And Demolition News was there to capture the action.

While we’re busily writing a comprehensive review for the next edition of Euro Demolition News and editing further video content to bring you here (hampered by a broken finger ironically sustained in a Swedish furniture store), here’s a brief video that captures some of the people and machines that made the event.

Stockholm Highlights from Mark Anthony on Vimeo.

Coleman & Co. start work on demolition of Phoenix Rise tower.

Work has begun to bring down the sixth and final tower block on a Black Country estate.

Birmingham-based Coleman and Co has been appointed by Wolverhampton City Council to knock down the 17-storey Phoenix Rise building in the Blakenhall area of the city.

The building is the last remaining tower block of sextet which once made up the Blakenhall Gardens Estate.

Read more here.

Bellaire Bridge debacle looks set to conclude in court.

The future of the Bellaire Toll Bridge soon could be determined in an Idaho courtroom.

Advanced Explosives Demolition – the demolition crew featured on the reality television show “The Imploders” – has filed a legal complaint in the Kootenai County, Idaho, court against Delta Demolition and KDC Investments, Delta attorney Jeremy Domoczik confirmed.

The complaint surrounds the issue of whether AED or Delta Demolition/KDC owns the bridge and who has the right to take it down. No hearing date has been set in the case.

Read more here.