A Clean Slate
April 09, 2024
For nearly 60 years, the Cleveland, Ohio, landscape consisted of two Ford Motor Company properties: a motor manufacturing plant and a stamping plant. Both built in the 1950s, the plants encompassed over 320 acres and, at one point, each employed nearly 20,000 workers. But as time progressed and a consolidation and downturn strategy went into effect, the facilities began to be shut down, first with the closing of the casting plant in 2010, then the stamping plant in 2014 and finally the engine plant in 2018.
In 2021, Weston Inc., DiGeronimo Companies and Scannell Properties partnered together to employ a multiyear redevelopment plan for both properties. Coined the Forward Innovation Center, the initiative is set to rejuvenate industry on the brownfield properties and breathe new life into distribution and manufacturing in Cleveland and the surrounding area. In all, the updated properties will include new industrial facilities that can accommodate over 5.5 million square feet of industrial, clear-span and flex spaces for tenants and add approximately 5,000 jobs to the local economy.
To realize their new development plans, the project owners needed a partner that could handle all aspects of demolition, construction and redevelopment from start to finish. Chosen for its experience and multifaceted approach, the DiGeronimo Companies unleashed its team, providing decommissioning work, hazardous materials removal and abatement, structural demolition and remediation activities performed by NDA member Independence Demolition; setting the stage for Independence Excavating to begin the mass earthwork and site utilities; all while being overseen by Independence Construction, managing vertical construction of future facilities at the site.
With the redevelopment team in place, the DiGeronimo Companies team began the first stage of demolition in August 2021 with Independence Demolition taking the lead.
“The first stage of demolition consisted of building residual removal, hazardous material collection and disposal, and asbestos abatement,” says Justin King, Independence Excavating’s vice president of industrial services. “Additionally, rigorous structural evaluations of the massive buildings were conducted, and the results of these analyses allowed structural demolition to commence in some areas while the decommissioning work was taking place elsewhere.”
Consistent with other automotive manufacturing plant sites, the buildings on the properties consisted of various pits, high bays, basements, presses and large foundations, as well as a variety of environmental challenges. In total, phase one included the removal of several million dollars’ worth of asbestos-containing material, countless bulbs, ballasts and batteries, and thousands of gallons of residual oils.
“Twelve electrical substations located on the properties were decommissioned, and their associated polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)-containing transformers, fixtures and concrete were appropriately remediated as part of phase one,” King says. “The primary environmental contaminants across the facilities were identified as PCBs and other carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic oil constituents. An estimated 750,000 cubic yards of foundry sand was also stored at one of the properties, which is regulated as an exempt solid waste in Ohio. All of this work was done in close coordination with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the project owners’ environmental consultants to ensure that environmental regulations were followed and the site was clean for its intended future use as an industrial park.”
Once the first phase was completed, the DiGeronimo team then transitioned into phase two, which was to remove concrete from the properties and prepare the development sites for their future buildings and utilities. To achieve this, the team crushed the entire mass of concrete that was generated during phase one and tested the material to confirm it met the environmental standards for reuse before leaving it for the construction phase of the redevelopment project.
While preparing concrete for reuse is common in the demolition process, the team was faced with a challenge when civil construction on one of the properties needed to begin before the structural demolition was completed. “This challenge required extremely careful planning and a high level of on-site coordination and communication to provide a clean and clear work zone that was safe for the rest of the team to occupy long term,” King says. “During this phase of the project, we implemented biweekly meetings across all the active teams on the project to ensure superintendents and project managers were all abreast of the work being performed. Overall, this extra planning and coordination allowed for increased visibility of the demolition across the redevelopment team and gave all workers on the job regular opportunities to ask questions and vet ideas for upcoming work.”
In addition to the concrete removal, the DiGeronimo team faced two other major challenges — the first being the relocation of foundry sand.
“A large portion of the spent foundry sand — 375,000 cubic yards — needed to be relocated to provide proper grades for a future building,” King says. “Luckily, Independence Demolition was able to provide a significant number of resources on the environmental management side of this work that allowed Independence Excavating to utilize its heavy civil capabilities to move the sand in a little over four months.”
Additionally, the Independence Demolition team had to work around the challenge of substation closures.
“Many of the substations required regulatory closure,” King says. “Independence Demolition provided the manpower to decommission and dismantle the substations, but the crew also used its internal environmental expertise to complete the required U.S. EPA closures for each of the substations impacted by high levels of PCBs.”
Despite the various challenges, many moving parts and ambitious timelines, Independence Demolition was able to complete the demolition portions of the project in March 2023.
“Overall, the team views this project as a huge success,” King says. “First, and most importantly, the entire project was performed with no lost time injuries — an amazing feat considering that the project encompassed up to 80 team members. We were also able to process and ship over 71,000 tons of scrap to recycling facilities as a result of this demolition, and over 225,000 tons of concrete was able to be processed and reused on the project as building and utility aggregate. All of this was made possible thanks to the collaboration, cooperation and trust throughout the team.”
In October 2023, Independence Excavating was awarded the Best Collaboration in Demolition Award at the World Demolition Summit for its work on the Forward Innovation Center project.