Fire Station 21 demolition update

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.”