Bids open but Corpus Christi still pondering full or partial demolition.

A dozen or so people gathered at City Hall Wednesday to watch city staff unseal 14 bids for Memorial Coliseum demolition.

Bids submitted Wednesday estimated the costs between $611,000 and 887,667. A&R Demolition, a company based near Austin, provided the lowest bid at $562,312. The company has previously won contracts from the city.

The ceremonial gathering Wednesday marked the first step toward a June demolition deadline. Staff with the city’s engineering department will review bid information and provide a recommendation to City Council for its meeting on 23 February.

Council will have one of four choices: select a bid for full demolition, select one for partial demolition, table the decision or throw out the bids. A partial demolition of the coliseum is an idea proposed by local architect George Clower. His plan would keep the arched green roof as an open-air pavilion and add a festival park and memorial nearby. He has suggested using the city money set aside for coliseum demolition and Shoreline Boulevard realignment for his plan, but has not yet provided a cost estimate for the entire project.

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Chicago mall that staged the famous Blues Brother movie car chase set to fall soon.

The long abandoned Dixie Square Mall, where the Blues Brothers famously filmed a police chase, has a new developer who plans to demolish the shuttered shopping center and build new stores and housing.

Preliminary plans for the 35-acre site at 153rd Street and Dixie Highway in south suburban Harvey, as well as surrounding blocks, call for big-box and smaller retail stores and as well as housing over five years, said Thomas Planera, chief counsel for the Chicago-based developer, MG Development South LLC.

The mall could be demolished as soon as later this month, but that hinges on Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan who has a pending lawsuit against the previous developer, the city of Harvey and several others, alleging environmental violations.

Dixie Square Mall has been an eyesore for years. It opened in 1966 and was one of the state’s first enclosed shopping malls. The doors were shut in 1979, but were famously reopened for the “Blues Brothers” scene in which John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd led police on a wild car chase through the building.

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Mayor orders temporary hold on demolition works in run-up to local elections.

The Quezon City government has imposed a ban on scheduled demolition operations within the city until after May.

In a one-page memorandum, Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said the suspension was aimed at preventing any misunderstanding among candidates that might arise due to the heightened political atmosphere.

“To avoid any misinterpretation that demolitions are being used to benefit or to cause damage to any political party or candidate, both local and national, it is hereby ordered that demolition orders issued but not yet implemented are hereby suspended until after the election period,” Belmonte said.

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A demolition worker has died on a Rwandan demolition site after wall fell on him.

Hamza Izabayo, 23, was killed when part of a wall fell on him during demolition of houses in the Gisenyi town of Rwanda’s Rubavu District.

“The deceased was among men who were temporarily hired by the family of Vedaste Rubangura to help in the demolition of their old house,” a police source told The New Times.

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Water and sewerage charges force General Demolition into liquidation.

A UK demolition company facing six years’ worth of water and sewage charges has gone into liquidation, snubbing a County Court judgement to pay up.

General Demolition Limited, operating from Weylands Treatment Works, in Walton-on-Thames, which dubbed itself’ one of the construction industry’s leading demolition and recycling contractors’, and had a multi-million Pound turnover, was ordered by Central London County Court to pay Veolia Water more than £23,000 in unpaid water charges from 2002-2008, and £35,000 towards costs.

However, as the deadline for discharging the judgement loomed, General Demolition Limited changed its name to Timbuk Two Limited and placed itself into liquidation.

Veolia Water’s Company Secretary Tim Monod warned that he would take whatever measures necessary to recover all charges.

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AED experts in expectation management as fly rock damage causes little complaint.

While neighbors have been almost unanimous in their praise of the implosion of the hurricane-damaged condo, the destruction did cause some minor damage.

Immediately south of 1515, at the Viking Arms condo, manager Seth Shulman said Monday the implosion left two broken windows. By mid-morning the contractor in charge of the demolition had a window crew on site, installing replacements.

Less than a block away at a law office, attorney Brent Davis said he had damage to some barrel tiles on his roof. “It’s like a couple of tiles,” said Davis. “I got a couple of rocks on the roof. But overall we’re pretty lucky, pretty happy.”

Terri Shapleigh, manager of the Norton Park Place condo, just to the north of 1515, said her building escaped broken windows. However dust and small rubble rocks still littered her lawn, and some hurricane shutters could not be opened, because the tracks were gummed up by debris pebbles.

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New video of Chinese implosion displays scant regard for dust control.

We have been critical of Chinese demolition methods in the past…and we’re about to do so again.

As far as we can tell, the actual physical implosion itself appears to have gone largely to plan; but it’s difficult to tell as the entire island (closely followed by the neighbouring land mass) is engulfed in a thick cloud of dust.

There are UK health and safety inspectors that could make an entire career out of a job like this!

Coverage of Lorain smokestack demolition fail to address safety issue.

The demolition of a school and its associated buildings is always likely to be an emotional and contentious issue. And the ongoing demolition of the Lorain High School in Cleveland is no exception, with many former teachers and students upset that the building could not be re-used or at least partially salvaged.

But all of this pales when compared to the method used to bring down the last of the school’s major structures.

With local media and former alumni attention focused upon this project, was it really such a good idea to break out the bottom of the stack, allowing it to fall perilously close to the excavator and its operator?

With 9,000 structures needing demolition, Houston could become demolition central…BUT

As we all know, there’s a huge difference between “in need of demolition” and “being demolished”. Budgets have to be approved, tenders submitted and agreed, environmental studies need to be conducted, planning permission needs to be obtained. And heaven forbid that a bat, vole, snake or rare insect is found while these processes are progressing at roughly the speed of wind erosion.

However, even with all that taken into consideration, Houston’s demolition contractors must surely be rubbing their hands together at the prospect ofa glut of work following research by the Houston Chronicle that has highlighted some 9,000 structures that are in need of or are overdue for demolition.

But before the collective Houston demolition contractors place an order for a new Ferrari or even think about clearing some of the debts they’ve accumulated over the past 18 months, city officials say they lack enough inspectors to address all the decrepit structures and the demolition approval process is lengthy.

So close, and yet so far!

South African cooling towers face demolition following reinforcement ring failure.

The two cooling towers at the decommissioned Athlone power station in Cape Town will be demolished after a reinforcement ring around one structure collapsed early Sunday.

The N2 was briefly closed as a precaution after the ring, fitted 18 years ago, crashed to the ground, Alderman Clive Justus from the mayoral committee for utilities said in a statement. He said the highway was reopened after structural engineers advised that there was no danger to passing cars.

Justus said the landmark towers would be torn down as soon as the council had studied a report by engineers and put in place measures to ensure municipal services were not disrupted.

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