Demolition

Implosion date set for Georgia Dome

Demolition of the Georgia Dome has finally been set for 7:30 a.m. Nov. 20, the according to NFL team the Atlanta Falcons parent company, AMB Group. The date had been delayed due to construction delays with its successor, Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

The new stadium is slated to open Aug. 26 when the Falcons take on the Arizona Cardinals in an exhibition game.

The dome was to be imploded in July, but that plan was scrapped in April to keep the building in place as an insurance policy against further construction delays with the new stadium.

Issues related to steel work on the retractable roof of the new stadium caused three previous delays in the opening date—first from March 1 to June 1, then to July 30, then to Aug. 26.

Stadium officials say they are confident in the August opening after the recent completion of structural steel work and the movement of the motorized roof from open to closed.

“Significant progress on Mercedes-Benz Stadium is achieved every day, and we’ve hit a few exciting milestones on the roof over the last week,” Steve Cannon, AMB Group’s CEO, said in a statement June 9.

To prepare for the implosion, crews are preforming decommissioning work at the dome, including removing seats, video boards and other items.

Demolition causes additional building to fall unintentionally

Baltimore city contractors accidentally knocked down an adjacent building during an emergency demolition on May 21, according to a report in the Baltimore Sun. The property that was supposed to be demolished shared a wall with the neighboring rowhouse.

City inspectors said the three-story building originally slated for demolition was unstable after several residential complaints about a bowing exterior wall and a crack between the two rowhouses. The Baltimore City Department of Housing condemned the building on May 20 and called for emergency demolition. The property was owned and being redeveloped by Baltimore-based TD Development.

TD Development owner Tyler Banks told the Baltimore Sun that work on the redevelopment project was being done to code, and he was working with the city to determine why the building was deemed unstable. He had the demolished property listed on his website May 22 with plans for a four bedroom, four and a half bathroom makeover.

During demolition by K&K Adams of Baltimore, a brick wall from the third story fell onto the roof of the neighboring rowhouse, a former pet shop called Laundry Mutt that was set for redevelopment by another owner. City officials then condemned the accidentally demolished building.

Joseph Rene, property owner of the former Laundry Mutt, was present during the demolition and told Baltimore Sun he will rebuild on the property. Originally, Rene planned to turn the property into a three-level, single-family home. He claims he was never notified of plans to demolish the neighboring building.

Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership awarded $1.5 billion contract

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership LLC, a CH2M-led company with partners Fluor Corp., Irving, Texas, and BWX Technologies Inc. (BWXT), Lynchburg, Virginia, was awarded the Paducah deactivation and remediation (D&R) contract at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The Paducah site is situated on approximately 3,500 acres in Western Kentucky, 8 miles west of Paducah, Kentucky, and 3.5 miles south of the Ohio River.

The performance-based contract is valued at approximately $1.5 billion over ten years; the base term is five years valued at approximately $750 million, followed by three-year and two-year option periods, valued at approximately $750 million combined. A transition period is scheduled to begin on June 2017.

The site, built in the 1950s as part of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex, processed uranium from 1952 to 2013 for military reactors, nuclear weapons and nuclear power plant fuels. The D&R contract includes management of more than 650 structures, properties and buildings and will optimize short- and long-term surveillance and maintenance costs to allow for additional stabilization, deactivation and remediation activities, reducing risk and future demolition costs.

CH2M provides consulting, design, engineering and management services for clients in water; environment and nuclear; transportation; energy and industrial markets. BWXT is a supplier of nuclear components and fuel to the U.S. government; provides technical and management services to support the U.S. government in the operation of complex facilities and environmental remediation activities; and supplies precision manufactured components, services and fuel for the commercial nuclear power industry.

In addition, BWXT joint ventures provide management and operations at more than a dozen U.S. Department of Energy and two NASA facilities.