Easy Does It

On the morning of Aug. 13, 2007, a ceremony featuring the mayor of Louisville, Ky., was held before a Liebherr crawler excavator took the first bites out of a former Philip Morris plant located there.

Prior to demolition, a "dismantling ceremony" attended by Mayor Jerry Abramson, Councilman David Tandy, several other city officials, former Philip Morris employees and members of the community was held to mark the transition that was about to occur.

A crowd of more than 125 people listened as Mayor Abramson described the possibility for new economic growth in West Louisville.

The former Philip Morris cigarette-making plant, located at 18th and Broadway in West Louisville, has been vacant for several years, having closed in 2000.

It is being demolished to create the NewBridge Crossing Development, a mixed-use development that will occupy approximately 23 acres of land.

The newly developed complex has been planned to include office buildings, condominiums, retail space and restaurants.

NewBridge Development LLC, a subsidiary created by Louisville-based The Mardrian Group Inc. (TMG), which is owned by Teresa and Frank Bridgewaters, will head up the development of the site.

The 15-year-old TMG firm has specialized in the construction of churches and community centers in the Louisville area and maintains a photo gallery of past projects at its Web site at www.mardrian.com.

The proposed NewBridge Crossing development could bring some $80 million in new property investments to the neighborhood, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

But before the new office, residential and retail structures can be built, dismantling and demolition crews will have to raze some 14 buildings with a combined 600,000 square feet of interior space.

As can be common with demolition projects in fully developed urban settings, the considerations of neighbors are a factor.

U.K.-based contractor Euro Decommissioning Services (EDS) has designed techniques and brought in equipment intended to keep vibrations, noise and dust to a minimum.

Adjacent to the Philip Morris plant is an operational distillery, which imposes much of the need to keep the impact minimal when razing the eight-story building.

EDS has called upon Liebherr’s R974 B Heavy Duty, Extra-Wide (HD-EW) crawler excavator to handle the primary demolition of much of the Philip Morris complex. The crawler excavator is brand new, having just been brought in from a Liebherr manufacturing plant in France.

With an effective operating height of 135 feet, the Liebherr R974 excavator can start from the top of the building and still control the demolition to ensure the safety of workers on the site, according to Liebherr.

The machine has an operating weight of 270,800 pounds and carries a 537-hp engine. The 30-degree tiltable cab contains cameras placed to view the attachment and the area behind the machine to provide maximum visibility for the operator, according to Bret Jacobson of Liebherr Construction Equipment Co., Newport News, Va.

According to the company, the machine’s D9G track components help provide tougher and more durable undercarriage components than a standard-built excavator. These components are designed to allow the crawler model to easily handle the additional force of working 135 feet from the base of the machine.

The machine is outfitted with a 15-foot, 7-inch boom and a 44-foot stick. Among the attachments to be used on the job are a 4,400-pound LaBounty UP20SV concrete processor and a Demarec MQP-30-C "multi-quick processor," which has a weight of 5,730 pounds.

The NewBridge Crossing development is scheduled to get off to an environmentally sound start, as dismantling contractor EDS plans to recycle some materials and salvage others for reuse.

EDS, which is one of the world’s largest demolition companies, has agreed to deduct the value of all the salvageable material from the cost of the project.

The Sheffield, U.K.- based company specializes in controlled demolition, stressing both the safety and recyclability aspects of each project.

"The methods of work employed by EDS are selected [based] on minimizing risk and maximizing the quantity of materials from the structures, which are recycled," the company notes on its Web site, found at www.eurodecommissioning.co.uk.

A consulting structural engineer will help determine which combination of traditional methods or controlled explosive demolition techniques are used, but the company claims the goals are the same: "We endeavor to reduce the need for personnel to work at close quarters to the structure being demolished, thus resulting in a safer working environment."

Liebherr’s Jacobson notes that the R974 purchased by EDS also contains positioning sensors that restrict the operator from reaching out and carrying heavy loads beyond a safe, unbalanced limit.

The EDS Web site further notes, "Specialized demolition shears are used for the cutting and processing of heavy steel sections, avoiding the need for traditional hot cutting methods and the associated inherent risks this process carries."

The particular Liebherr machine being used in Louisville "is capable of using a variety of attachments," says Jacobson. He also notes that the stick and boom length have been custom designed for EDS.

Tearing down a building adjacent to an operating distillery—with its carefully stored and aging product—is not a unique situation for the international firm. "Many demolition projects have been successfully carried out in close proximity to sensitive areas such as live operating plants, residential areas and public places such as roads, railway lines and footpaths," the EDS write-up notes.

On the Philip Morris project in Louisville, among the materials to be recycled are concrete, glass, steel, aluminum, brass and copper, the combined value of which may add up to almost two-thirds the cost of the entire demolition project.

Before the mechanical razing got started, Habitat for Humanity was given access to the site to obtain salvageable material such as wood floors and sections of reusable concrete.

The demolition of the plant is scheduled for completion before the end of this year, while the sprawling new development will be constructed in a series of phases through 2010.