History is the chronicle of life-changing events. The strategic implosion of the long-abandoned Park Avenue Hotel on July 11, 2015 was a significant step in the ongoing growth and renewal of the City of Detroit. Just as the erection of this hotel tells part of Detroit’s storied history, its demolition will do the same.

 

The 13-story hotel, built in 1924, featured luxurious and innovative decor and was a great success until 1928, when it was taken over by the Salvation Army. The property continued to experience ups and downs over the next 87 years serving as a senior housing facility and eventually the Salvation Army’s Harbor Lights Center, a rehabilitation center for the homeless until it was eventually shuttered for good in 2003.

 

Using precision demolition techniques, Adamo Group together with Dykon Explosive Specialists strategically placed and discharged 200 pounds of linear shape charges to implode the former Park Avenue Hotel in approximately 17 seconds. Weeks of preparation work were required to accomplish this massive task while simultaneously preserving the nearby historic Eddystone Hotel located a mere 28 feet away.

 

Adamo President Richard Adamo, remained on-site monitoring all project tasks throughout the process and shared these thoughts:

 

“The safety and success of this implosion is a result of careful planning, communication from the entire Adamo project management and field teams, and the assistance of all local governmental agencies/officials. Barton Mallow Hunt White, along with the coordination through the Detroit Entertainment Events Center ownership also aided in the effective execution of this project”

 

When asked about the result of the implosion at the Park Avenue Hotel, John Adamo Jr., CEO of Adamo Group Inc. stated the following:  

“I am extremely proud of our entire team. They performed above and beyond to prepare and safely implement our work plan with the highest level of precision. The success of this implosion was no doubt the result of the tireless efforts engaged by the professionals working for us.”

Adamo has been a major part of the largest demolition effort funded by TARP Hardest Hit Funds. It was one of three contractors tasked with abating and demolishing up to 800 homes each in a short 90 day window in late summer of 2014. Adamo’s project was a success; in fact we completed our first nearly 600 locations assigned, completing the work faster than the agency was able to get them cleared for demolition. We increased our fleet and staff by over 15% and completed the work while simultaneously continuing our residential and commercial demolition projects with other City departments, completing over 1,100 structures in 9 months.

“What they did recently was remarkable, taking down 1300 homes with no environmental problems, no OSHA complaints. It’s an extraordinary company, doing extraordinary work. We’re really proud to be partnered with them,” stated City of Detroit Mayor, Mike Duggan.

 

Adamo increased their capacity several-fold to ensure public and environmental health and safety. This led to a flawless safety record, with no incidents or accidents for the duration of the project. And the work performed by Adamo Group was referred to by individuals in Washington D.C. as what should be ‘the national best practice.’

Sometimes you can’t fully appreciate something unless you see it in person. That was certainly the case for the subject of the Demolition Supplement lead feature, “Determined in Detroit.” I’ve been hearing and reading about the blighted and abandoned housing situation in Detroit for years, but I didn’t fully appreciate what this city was going through until I turned my car onto Vaughn Street in the southwestern part of the city in February.

I traveled there from Cleveland with a staff videographer to meet with a crew from Adamo tearing down several houses on the street. What looked like what was at one time a charming neighborhood was now a spattering of occupied homes right next door to abandoned home after abandoned home with broken-out windows, no doors and spray painted with graffiti. I was surprised when a worker told me that the part of Detroit we were in was “one of the better” areas they’ve been working in.

Right before our eyes, an operator knocked down a 2-story house on a corner lot. The whole process of demolishing the house with an excavator and attachment took only a couple of minutes. Then the excavator was loaded up and it was on to the next house a block or so away. A couple of miles away on Forrer Street, another demolition firm welcomed us. A crew from Homrich was loading material from a house demo job into a large truck to be hauled away. Dozens of other crews from other firms also were out demolishing houses that frigid day in February, streets still heavily lined with snow from a day earlier. That is what I call dedication.

I want to personally thank Chris Mathews and Tim Sherman of Adamo as well as Anthony Abela and Austin Straub of Homrich for taking time out of their days to meet with us and show us this important work. John Adamo’s comments and Tim Homrich’s help coordinating the visit also were key to the article and video we created.

To say that Detroit has had it tough over the last decade would be an understatement. Record population declines have left much of Detroit’s houses and other buildings abandoned. Residents have been cash-strapped, leaving little in tax revenue to support the city’s services, which led to the city in 2013 being the largest municipality in U.S. history to declare bankruptcy.

It may be hard for outsiders to see the light at the end of the tunnel for this desperate city, but thanks to the work of demolition firms clearing blighted properties from neighborhoods all over the 140 square miles of the city, Detroit is embarking on a long journey that will hopefully make it come out on the other side. The end of 2014 marked Detroit’s exit from bankruptcy. Firmer footing and a push to rid the city of blighted properties are poising the Motor City for a brighter future.

Some estimates say the blighted and abandoned structures in Detroit number about 78,000. Detroit-area demolition firms like Adamo and Homrich are putting a dent in that number. While these companies are experts at large-scale industrial demolitions, lately the focus has been on removing abandoned houses from residential areas throughout the city. And there are plenty to go around.

Homrich demolished 1,000 houses last year, while Adamo currently has a contract for a 500-house demolition – all within the Detroit city limits. Now the city wants to ramp up housing demolitions even further with state funds earmarked for demolition.

“A significant increase in residential demolitions began last year when Mayor [Mike] Duggan was elected as mayor of Detroit, and the state of Michigan awarded Detroit $50 million for demolition through the Hardest Hit program,” says Anthony Abela, project manager at Homrich.

He notes that Detroit has been demolishing houses since the population began to decline back in the 1960s. Homrich, which started its business in 1964, has always been involved in housing demolitions, but Abela says there has been a renewed effort to demolish as many structures in the city as possible.

Adamo, too, has a long history of performing residential and commercial demolitions in Detroit. But CEO John Adamo says in his 35 years with the company he has never before seen the volume of work that is being proposed with the speed at which the city wants the work to be completed.

“There is a large inventory of houses that have always been in the queue to be demolished, but most of the structures are blighted to the point where fires have burned them out or the condition is very deteriorated so there is an urgency to get rid of them,” says Adamo.

An Ambitious Plan
According to Adamo, the push to ramp up housing demolitions began in May 2014. “The city told contractors their goal is to remove up to 1,000 structures a month. That’s like 10,000 to 12,000 a year,” he says, adding, “The most the city has ever had is 4,000 or 5,000, so they are more than doubling what they’ve done in previous years.”

Adamo says so far, combined efforts from demolition firms have resulted in about 500 houses per month being demoed. Taking into account the available resources of people and equipment, Adamo is cautiously optimistic about the goal. “It’s an ambitious goal. I would like to see it achieved. It would mean we are busy,” he says.

Adamo says he has heard estimates of between 40,000 to 80,000 residential and commercial structures that are scheduled to be demolished. Either way, he says, “It’s still a lot of structures.” Eighty percent of the structures slated for demolition through the Hardest Hit program are residential, with the remaining 20 percent commercial. Adamo describes the commercial sites that are part of the program as mostly storefronts with apartments above them.

The Detroit Land Bank is handling the demolition permitting process. The demolitions are grouped together into packages ranging from 20 to 50 to 100 houses at one time that are up for bid. Larger firms like Adamo and Homrich are typically awarded the larger packages.

“The system seems to be working out,” says Adamo. “They aren’t awarding the low bid. They are awarding the best bid.”

A Different Process
Housing demolitions work differently than the large industrial and commercial jobs Homrich and Adamo typically perform. Instead of one large job site, demolition firms have hundreds of job sites all over the city.

“Each job site needs to be managed and a wide variety of logistical obstacles exist every day,” says Abela. “It is typical for our personnel to be at an address up to seven times before that address is complete.”

Adamo says on a given day, the firm has about 15 crews moving equipment around the city, knocking down houses, loading up material, backfilling and site grading. A crew of two are assigned to each task and crews rotate. “We divide it into those segments of work and then you just multiply the number of crews to get your capacity,” he explains.

Both Adamo and Homrich use excavators with grapple or bucket-thumb combination attachments. Cat 324s and 329s as well as Volvo 220 and 250 excavators make up the Adamo fleet. Adamo moves the equipment from location to location with eight lowboys.

Homrich invested in a new fleet of six Komatsu 240 excavators with buckets and thumbs specifically for the residential demolition program. Abela says the company typically uses larger excavators (in the 300-plus weight class) but the smaller machines make maneuvering around the city easier. Homrich also has invested in specialized trucks to handle the waste stream generated from its residential jobs.

“In addition to machinery, we have a large and skilled workforce who have countless years of residential demolition experience,” Abela says.

Prior to demolition, a property is marked with a sign denoting that demolition will occur to notify neighbors. Environmental abatement is required for every structure.

“Most of the areas are abandoned so there is not a high percentage of occupied structures nearby,” Adamo says. “That’s because the focus has been to remove the worst blighted areas first.”

Water is used during the knock-down and load-out phases to eliminate dust.

Adamo employs a process called “wet demolition” to help eliminate dust during demolition. Adamo says it is a process that originated in Baltimore. “What it really means is just more water than you would normally use but not so much as to waterlog the debris.”

He says the wet demolition takes a little bit more effort, but it has helped control dust much better than a light mist from a hose.

Job sites are kept secure with wooden stakes and fencing until the property is backfilled and graded to prevent residents from injuring themselves, says Abela. “Additionally, we aim to knock down, load out and backfill the address as quickly as possible to reduce any hazards to the neighborhood.”

By the time the demolition crews arrive, not much from the house can be salvaged or recycled. Copper pipes, HVAC units, hot water heaters and cast iron tubs have long been removed by thieves. Brick and block inside the house are not recyclable because they contain lead-based paint. On the other hand, concrete can be recycled. Foundations, walls and driveways are crushed to produce recycled aggregate products. Adamo says Detroit changed its specs to allow concrete broken up into pieces to be used as part of the fill for the remaining basement cavities of the houses being demolished.

According to Adamo, demolishing houses is easy, but the pace at which the city is pushing for the demolitions has been challenging. He says it is putting a strain on resources, taxing the permitting department and overloading servers with data.

“Coordinating these activities is challenging by the volume of work and the pressure of available resources,” he says.

Community Impact
The majority of houses slated for demolition range in size from 1,000 to 5,000 square feet and are usually one and two-stories high. Adamo describes the neighborhoods as being spotted with residents. A typical scenario is having more houses slated for demolition on blocks than are being lived in.

Detroit is approximately 140 square miles, and Abela says Homrich has been in every neighborhood and every corner of the city performing housing demolitions. Last year Homrich was involved in its largest housing demolition for the city of Detroit. The Douglass Brewster Housing Complex consisted of 18 separate buildings: four 15-story high-rises, two 6-story mid-rises and twelve 2-story row-houses containing nearly 1,000 units.

“It is easy to see the positive steps that Detroit has taken in the past few years and in particular the past year as the residential demolition program has expanded,” Abela says. “We have countless stories of residents coming up to us and thanking us for helping to improve their neighborhoods. Every blighted house that we demolish is a step in the right direction for Detroit.”

Homrich performs work throughout the Midwest region, but has a soft spot for its home base of Detroit. “While maintaining this footprint, it has been an excellent opportunity to take part in the blight remediation efforts and residential demolition in our hometown of Detroit,” says Abela.

Knowing the work demolition crews are performing is having a positive impact on neighborhoods in Detroit is the most rewarding part of the job for Adamo. “The immediate improvement of the overall quality of life of residents is the biggest impact. Everyone has welcomed our crews with thankful comments.”

At the proposed rate of 12,000 structures per year, it could take six years for all of the blighted houses to be removed. If things continue at that rate, Adamo is optimistic that people will begin to rebuild and move back into the city.

“If they do half of what they are talking about, it is going to make a huge difference,” Adamo says.

Adamo is optimistic all the housing demolitions will make way for new development and has even seen some new home building sprouting up near the office on East Seven Mile Road. “It’s going to take some time, there’s no doubt about it, but it has to happen,” Adamo predicts, adding, “There’s no way it will until the blight is gone.”

Adamo says while his firm has not traditionally been a residential contractor, it has always done residential jobs for the city of Detroit. The firm is the busiest it has ever been with the residential work it is doing for the city of Detroit, and Adamo hopes it continues.

“We would welcome a steady workflow over an extended period of time so it would be good for everyone if this work would continue at this pace,” he says.

Detroit’s housing demolition program has been a model for the country for its efficiency, according to Adamo. From the city to the dozens of contractors working on the demolitions, Adamo says, “Everyone is on the right page in trying to make this thing happen for the betterment of the city, and it is really refreshing to see that. I see a lot of positive things happening right now, and this program is a good estimate of what the future is going to be for this city. For the first time, there is a lot of light being shined, and let’s hope it turns itself around here in a hurry.”

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Not everyone embraces change, but when the National Demolition Association (NDA) knew its long-time executive director, Mike Taylor, was retiring, its board members sprang into action. It was proactive. A selection committee was formed to explore the management options available for the 800-plus member organization representing the demolition industry. The committee was determined to find the best solution for the organization, and as they started looking, it became clear that an association management firm was the way to go.

In October 2014, the NDA announced it had selected Smith Bucklin to take over management of the association. The headquarters of the NDA moved from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, to the District of Columbia with an additional office in Chicago. As part of that move, the NDA gained the expertise of the firm’s Cheryl Caulfield, who now serves as the new executive director, as well as a staff of 14, including a Director of Governmental Affairs, Kevin McKenney.

“In the short time since the transition we have already experienced some great positives in moving the NDA to the next level of performance and recognition,” NDA President Jeff Kroeker stated when I interviewed him in late January. “It was a move that is sure to benefit our members.”

That sentiment also is echoed by John Adamo of Detroit demolition firm Adamo Group. He was on the search committee that recommended Smith Bucklin. He told me when we talked in February, “I know that the object is to make the association bigger, better and stronger, and we hope with their help, their management skills and their association management expertise, they will bring it to a new level and a higher level.”

If the NDA is going to get the most from its new staff and executive director, it has to come from member support. Having members that are engaged, enthusiastic and eager to bring the industry forward will be key to Smith Bucklin’s success in representing the NDA. The staff of Construction & Demolition Recycling wishes them the best in this endeavor and for the future of the NDA as a whole.

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As part of Adamo Group’s ongoing commitment to safety, employees were provided with OSHA 10-hour Construction instruction last month, which highlighted Construction Focus Four Training. Lessons included fall, caught-in or -between, struck-by, and electrocution hazards. Additional lessons included rigging, fire safety, cutting and burning, and highlights into the correct operation of regulators and torches and the safety hazards they present. Course instruction was presented by Adamo’s safety director, Corey Lindros, whose many credentials include OSHA 510 and 500 Outreach Trainers certification. All participants successfully completed training and received certification.

In March 2014 Adamo Group Inc. (Adamo) assisted the Detroit Fire Department (DFD) with a two-alarm fire at the Palmer Promotional Products plant at 1600 Farnsworth Street. Several small fires inside the building quickly spread and converged into one huge fire that burned for five days. Adamo was called in to supplement the services of another Detroit-based demolition company, Farrow Group, Inc., who was contracted by the DFD to assist with clean up at fire-damaged sites.

With 50 years of experience and expertise, Adamo Group is called upon regularly for a variety of emergency work, including fires, sinkholes, and debris and hazardous materials management. Because these events commonly occur within city limits – affecting thousands of residents, businesses and commuters – time is of the utmost importance. Adamo acted quickly to remove the plant’s collapsing building components and keep the site contained to ensure the two neighboring facilities, which were evacuated because of the fire, would be safe to reoccupy and resume business as soon as possible.

Adamo supplied its APEX 70 UHD and Cat 385CL excavators to clear paths, which allowed the DFD to gain better access to various isolated fires. Demolition of the six-story, 500,000-square-foot factory continued under the direction of the DFD Fire Marshall to safeguard areas of the building that were severely compromised as a result of the extreme temperatures from the fire. After making the building safe, Adamo was contracted by the building owner to complete the demolition of the burnt-out factory.

Once the flames were finally exhausted and the smoke subsided, the network of buildings, some nearly a century old, was devastated. While the structures were constructed of reinforced concrete and designed to withstand extremes, they could not hold up to the fire that ravaged them for nearly a week. Buckled, crumbling concrete walls were the obvious result of the fire. Less evident was the potential environmental impact of the blaze.

Due to environmental and safety concerns associated with the site clean-up and eventual building demolition, City of Detroit officials requested the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) assist in overseeing the project. The USEPA and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) began inspecting the facility to assess the environmental impact and exposure. The evidence of regulated asbestos-containing material (RACM) in the smoldering debris piles and the potential PCB-impacted transformers were of particular concern.

Further investigation verified that the building debris was contaminated with RACM levels so great that all of the debris, including the buildings still standing, had to be removed as asbestos-containing waste materials. Adamo also promptly established protocols for the testing and monitoring of all sources potentially impacted with PCB contaminants. Safety requirements and standards were reviewed daily to ensure the protection of the workers, the buildings and neighboring occupants. Oversight officials confirmed that area residents and nearby businesses were protected throughout the project, through the concerted efforts of the USEPA’s on-site consultant, regular meetings between Adamo, the USEPA and MDEQ, and the meticulous work plans developed by Adamo and approved by the regulatory agencies. With over 60,000 cubic yards of debris removed, the project concluded with final clean up and site restoration in June 2014.

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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.

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Chris Mathews’ crew showed up this month to demolish one of the thousands of vacant homes destined for demolition as part of Detroit’s grand plan to bulldoze its way to prosperity when a call from his office stopped them in their tracks: Someone was living there.

A middle-aged woman who watched the crew tear away the home’s warped wooden steps the day before had called their company, Adamo Demolition, to point out she was living on the second floor, despite no power, heat or gas and a flooded basement.

“It was like a swimming pool. We would never have thought anybody was upstairs,” said Mathews, noting that the incident cost his crew time because the demolition wasn’t called off until after they had shown up with their equipment.

As Detroit carries out its plan to tear down tens of thousands of homes to combat blight and tailor the city to fit its population, which has dwindled to about a third the size of its 1950s peak, it will have to deal with an unknown number of squatters. Since the city doesn’t allow occupied properties to be demolished, squatters who won’t leave voluntarily and who have no previous connection to the homes have to be removed by police for violating the city’s trespassing laws. That makes them a complication of sorts for the recovery of the city, which emerged in December from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Clearing away as many vacant houses as possible as quickly as possible is a priority. Drug dealers often set up shop in them, bodies turn up in them and some houses have been sites of sexual assaults.

But for some of the approximately 16,000 homeless people in Detroit, the structures offer safety and shelter.

Michele McCray calls them “abandonminiums.” McCray, 58, has been homeless for much of her adult life, yet she has had her pick of vacant houses to live in over the years.

“You look for one that’s decent, already fixed up,” McCray said from a homeless shelter where she stays when it’s too cold to hunker down in a house without heat and other utilities.

“The first thing you do is cut the grass … because the neighbors want to know who you are and what’s going on over here. You have to maintain the property. Paint the place up, keep it looking good.”

She sees it as a community service.

“A lot of people leave the door open because they want somebody to move in there,” McCray said. “When you got somebody that’s living in a place … that keeps people from coming in, tearing the place up, stealing the fixtures. It cuts down on people starting places on fires, stealing your furnace.”

A survey completed last year determined that more than 40,000 structures needed to be torn down. Another 38,000 had indications of blight and could be up for demolition.

Squatters aside, the city will not stop its fight against blight, said Craig Fahle, a spokesman for the Detroit Land Bank Authority, the agency overseeing the project.

“Illegal occupancy is an issue, but there is plenty of work to do with homes that are not occupied,” he said.

About 10 percent of the houses Adamo goes out to demolish have squatters or evidence of squatters, according to Mathews.

Tiffany Tilley, a real estate agent, said about 20 to 30 percent of the more than 100 properties she has shown have had signs that someone had been squatting in them.

“When you’re in the kitchen you might see food with plastic utensils in open jars,” Tilley said. “There was an incident or two when there were feces stored in a bedroom in a bucket.”

Squatters make it more difficult to show and sell properties, she said, referencing an east side house shown to investors about a month ago.

“We didn’t go past the kitchen,” said Tilley, 38. “It was evident someone had been in there or was still in there. There is always a risk of danger when you’re dealing with someone who is squatting. I don’t want to take that chance.”

Latisha Johnson wants vacant houses in her East English Village neighborhood to be occupied, but not by squatters. She sees people living in houses that don’t belong to them as part of Detroit’s blight problem.

Johnson, a block captain and former leader of the neighborhood association, calls Detroit’s squatting “an epidemic.”

“I don’t personally believe that any squatter is a good squatter,” she said. “You don’t know exactly what is going on in that house. You don’t know if they are tearing up that house. The person has no responsibility and will not be held responsible for anything that occurs at that house.” http://goo.gl/620WGw

John Adamo, Jr. weighs in on Detroit’s blight removal campaign progress to date. Read Detroit Free Press article.