Changing a Small Town’s Landscape
May 27, 2025
This article originally appeared in the September/October 2008 issue of DEMOLITION magazine.
It amazed a lot of people how fast everything came down, which is how Gary Theisen described the community’s reaction to watching so many landmark buildings disappear in downtown Cold Spring, Minnesota. The change of scenery was dramatic, especially since the sprawling corporate headquarters and plant of the Cold Spring Granite Company had been there longer than most of the 3,000 folks in town have been alive.
The company was founded in 1898 by a Scottish immigrant stonecutter and has remained in the family for four generations. Originally called the Rockville Granite Company in a town with the same name, the company moved a few miles south in 1920 to downtown Cold Spring and added a number of buildings over the years.
“When people learned we were going to tear everything down at the old site, someone asked me about how long it would take to bring one of our buildings down,” Theisen continued. The longtime senior executive of the company remembers telling them that “Rachel Contracting planned to have all 12 buildings down in about three months. People were shocked to learn that could happen with a facility this size.”
The project began in November 2007 with extensive removal of asbestos and other hazardous materials from roof and pipe insulation, siding and floor tiles, according to Nick Bartemio, project manager for Rachel. Actual demolition began the following February with the removal of the foundry building, and by late April, most of the other structures on the 28-acre site were gone.
Interestingly, one of the last structures on the site to be demolished was the machinists and welders building, which was moved about 150 miles from Duluth, Minnesota, during the early days of WWII. It was soon converted to manufacturing tank turrets and tracks, ship hulls and bottoms, and other equipment for the military. As the war progressed, many of the company’s other buildings at the site were also converted to the production of materials to support the war effort.
By the Numbers
“These were substantial buildings, constructed mostly with steel and concrete that enclosed more than 450,000 square feet,” Bartemio continued. More than 95% of the building materials were recovered during demolition by Rachel. In addition, 95,000 tons of concrete were crushed on-site and will be used to construct a new mixed-use commercial, retail and residential development on the same property.
“We approached this important project like we do with most of our demolition projects, namely to meet LEED guidelines for recovery and recycling materials,” he continued.
Accordingly, this project would qualify for three points toward a New Construction Rating from LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design). Diverting more than 75% of debris from landfills would meet criteria for two points, while diverting over 95% would qualify for exemplary performance status and an additional point.
“Besides the overall size and scope of the project, we faced some of the coldest winter temperatures in years,” Bartemio remembered. “In fact, one day it was 27 below, but we kept working. Another major challenge for us was to carefully coordinate the demolition schedule and keep the area safe, because several of the buildings were still occupied.”
Rachel accomplished this by holding weekly planning and update meetings on-site with officials from the company and Miller Architects and Builders, who designed and built the company’s new headquarters just a few miles west of town on a spacious 540-acre parcel. The new location is nearly 20 miles larger than the old site.
More Challenges
A significant part of the project also involved Rachel salvaging a number of pieces of heavy equipment, including overhead cranes, saws, electrical machinery and copper wiring, all of which were moved to the new plant. In addition, Rachel’s crew worked cautiously to avoid damaging a network of underground utilities and tunnels.
“There were a million things that could have gone wrong with this project,” Theisen added. “But they didn’t, because Rachel tackled things that came up without being asked. And they never had any accidents or incidents during the whole project.”
Rachel had a crew of up to 20 workers during the abatement phase to remove hazardous materials and up to 10 employees to demolish the buildings. Equipment-wise, they used eight excavators on the project. Five were 80,000-pound Model 330D units and one 100,000-pound Model 345C unit, all from Caterpillar, and two 100,000-pound Model PC400LC excavators from Komatsu.
Several excavators were equipped with sheers to cut steel beams, grappler buckets to pull down roofs and siding, and to separate materials for salvage. The company also used two Cat wheel loaders (a Model 980G and a Model 950H), and several skid steers for separating materials and cleaning debris from roadways.
Granite West
The genesis for such a major change at Cold Spring Granite came in the late 1980s when the company began to realize more space was needed to handle its growing business. The old plant was also obsolete and inefficient, according to Theisen.
That thinking led the company to develop its new flagship operations on the huge new site just west of town, just a few miles from the old site. Construction began on a new, 130,000-square-foot headquarters, plant and warehouse in 1993, while production continued at the old plant.
The new facilities, known as Granite West, enabled the company to update and streamline its operations with new technologies and more efficient systems. They installed state-of-the-art equipment, including computer-programmed cutting saws and polishing equipment, which are smaller and more productive. In 1997, the company began to transition much of its production to the new plant and began phasing out buildings at the old site.
“One of the other big benefits for the move was that we were able to consolidate everything at the new facility with fewer buildings,” he continued. In 2000, the company built a new 61,000-square-foot bronze foundry and memorial plant at the new site, which has the capacity to triple production of bronze markers, cast bronze bases, emblems, mausoleum crypts, niche plaques and other products.
Cold Spring Granite Company is one of the largest granite quarrying and fabrication and bronze memorial manufacturing operations in the world, with approximately 1,200 employees, including 750 in Cold Spring. It is also the oldest and largest company in town. Its operations include five fabrication locations, six subsidiaries and more than 30 quarries.
The company is a major supplier of granite and bronze products to cemetery and monument companies, and to contractors and fabricators in the building and commercial markets.
Cold Spring Granite’s products can be seen in the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Korean War Memorials, both in Washington, D.C., the Bank of America’s corporate headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, and many other large and small office buildings around the country.