Most of the old Fire Station 21 at Greenwood Avenue North and North 73rd Street has been demolished, but demo crews still have a ways to go.
Project Manager Rich Hennings says demolition will continue on the fire station for at least another week, maybe two, before crews can demolish the adjacent house to the east of the station. The first floor of the station is now gone, but the basement/crawl space still needs to come down.
Here’s what the site looked like Wednesday morning.
That basement used to contain a mechanical room and a weight room, covered with a thick concrete slab.
“The slab is very strong,” Hennings said. “There’s a lot of concrete in there. It will take them well into next week and probably into the next.”
Instead of just throwing away all the material, most of it is being recycled. “We are looking at over 90 percent recycled material,” Hennings said.
This morning we saw one worker sorting bricks into a big pile.
Hennings said the only material so far that hasn’t been recycled was some lead and asbestos from the roof. Wood is being turned into power-generating fuel or particle board, the steel is being melted down into new steel, and the bricks are being ground up and used for road base under concrete or asphalt.
Crews are working weekdays from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and they’ll be making quite a bit of noise as they jackhammer the concrete.
“It’s hard to take down concrete without making noise, (but) if somebody hears a jackhammer at 6:50 in the morning, I need to know about it,” Hennings said.
The adjacent house will come down sometime around Sept. 17, although Hennings said it might be a few days later than that. Weather isn’t too much of an issue for crews. In fact, a light rain is helpful in keeping the dust down.
After demolition is complete, crews will grade the site and then excavate for the building footings, and install culverts for storm water.
They’ll be stockpiling as much dirt as possible for back fill.
“It’s very difficult to store our material on a site that that’s small. But wherever they can they’ll be stockpiling materials for after the back fill is in place.”
6 responses so far ↓
1 outside the box // Sep 1, 2010 at 3:33 pm
My math can sometimes be flawed, but by Mr. Hennings account 10% of the building was lead and asbestos?? That sounds like alot. I only bring it up because every post seems to be about how much recycling is taking place.
2 Doree // Sep 1, 2010 at 7:58 pm
outside the box – Rich Hennings was only giving an estimate of “over 90 percent” recycled. He didn’t have exact figures at the time. But he certainly didn’t mean that 10% was lead and asbestos. He told me it was a small amount. For the next update, I’ll ask if he has more exact figures.
3 outside the box // Sep 1, 2010 at 8:42 pm
I know….just trying to give him a little nudge. I will even be thrilled if final tally is 90% recycled, 9% to the dump and 1% hazardous! One thing I DO wonder is how much extra cost is going to all this seperating/recycling (it’s STILL the right thing to do!)….no, never mind….I DON’T want to know!
4 SPG // Sep 1, 2010 at 9:59 pm
From what I hear, the dump fees are high enough that it’s more expensive to dump a building than to recycle the materials.
5 James // Sep 4, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Well I will be happy to say as of the end of the week we can say that 100% of what has left the site under Maclin and that who is doing the demo has been recycled and at no more cost then what it would have been to just to dump it like most demo jobs. The demo was to last 2 weeks and as of now I would be willing to say that well will be right at that
6 petsfriend // Sep 5, 2010 at 7:59 am
Dear Mr. Hennings,
““It’s hard to take down concrete without making noise, (but) if somebody hears a jackhammer at 6:50 in the morning, I need to know about it,” Hennings said.”
Comments like that are so appreciated and rare these days. A manager who takes responsibility and understands regs. Wow. Kudos to you. All the best on your project.
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