Adamo Group has been a leader in the programs targeting blighted and abandoned homes in Detroit this year. Though Adamo has performed residential demolition in Detroit for nearly two decades, the company’s work through the City of Detroit and the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA) since April 2014 has reached unprecedented levels.
In the last nine months Adamo has demolished nearly 1,300 blighted structures and will continue its work in 2015. Adamo is utilizing a variety of mid-sized excavators to level the structures and load the debris into trucks, as well as bulldozers for backfilling and grading. At the peak of the work this summer, six to eight crews, consisting of two to three workers per crew, operated on a six days per week, 10 hours per day schedule to meet the aggressive timelines mandated by the City of Detroit and DLBA.
The work has not been without a few challenges along the way, including torrential downpours, squatters, and the coordination of utility disconnections. The Detroit Police Department has been a great help in assisting with squatters, and DTE has worked at a rapid pace to achieve utility shut-off clearances to help Adamo keep the project on schedule.
The logistics of trucking high volumes of debris to landfills was hampered by limited trucking availability during the busy summer construction season, and the total shutdown of I-96. Longer routes to landfills had to be taken, consuming valuable time, and special arrangements had to be initiated with the local landfills to keep their facilities open for extended hours during the week and on Saturdays to accommodate the project’s objectives.
Interaction from the community throughout the project has been very positive overall. During the due diligence stage, it was common for residents to approach crews and thank them for their work and for helping to improve the image of their neighborhoods. One resident wrote a letter to the Mayor, applauding Adamo for its quick emergency work on a structure that was in danger of falling on her home.
As 2014’s residential demolition wrapped up, Adamo crews made final grades and site restorations to parcels where hundreds of blighted homes stood just a few weeks ago.