End of Transmission
April 04, 2023
By: Larry Trojak
To answer Shakespeare’s somewhat rhetorical question, there’s a whole lot in a name. Case in point: One would have to believe that much thought was given before a certain Indianapolis demolition company settled on “Rena scent” for its moniker. Renascent, after all, is defined as: “becoming active or vigorous again; reviving,” and rebirth is actually at the heart of almost any demolition project. Whether something is demolished to make way for a new structure, a highway expansion or even a green space, the end result is generally always something new being born out of the old.
Such is currently the case as NDA member Renascent Demolition brings down a massive, once-thriving Detroit-area transmission plant to make way for new commercial development. Drawing upon a host of specialty tools, including a literal arsenal of shears and multi-jaw processors from Genesis Attachments (Superior, Wisconsin), the company is removing what had become a painful reminder of times gone by to make way for new, exciting economic growth. If that’s not renascent, what is?
Going Big
Established in 2004, Renascent started with work in central Indiana, grew to projects throughout the region and today boasts a staff of as many as 200. Specialists in structural demolition, selective demolition, abatement services and recycling, the company has also established itself as the go-to source for renewal of municipal structures, airport work and public works projects. With corporate headquarters in Indianapolis, and regional offices in Nashville and Washington, D.C., Renascent is no stranger to high-profile projects, having done work at the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway as well as several area airports and large hospitals. However, according to Dalton Cooper, one of the company’s superintendents, there’s no denying the Detroit-area project is massive in scope.
“This project calls for the demolition of what was once a General Motors transmission assembly facility in Warren, Michigan,” he says. “It’s a 2.2-million-square-foot plant, which sits on 117 acres, and once employed as many as 1,200 workers, but was closed in 2019. At the start of the pandemic, they reopened briefly as a manufacturer of masks, face shields and other personal protective equipment, but shut down for good in 2021. We won the bid to demolish the massive complex and started work in February of 2022.”
An indication of just how progressive Renascent is when approaching its work, a 3D representation of the site — created from available prints — was first modeled using SolidWorks, a 3D CAD design software. Doing so not only allows estimators to get a better handle on quantities, it also helps identify problematic areas in the structure and can prove valuable in formulating the overall demolition plan.
Initial work included a rigorous abatement process — another of Renascent’s strengths — in advance of the demo work. Actual demolition consisted of a four-phase plan to address different sections of the facility with an eye toward near-future construction of 1.4 million square feet of industrial space.
No Idle Time
The imposing nature of the Warren plant — and the structural steel it contained — dictated the number and size of attachments needed to tackle the demo. To best meet their needs, Renascent, a Genesis Attachments user since 2010, tapped its fleet of tools, including five XT Series mobile shears, a trio of LXP® multi-processors and several GSD Severe-Duty grapples. Despite such a presence, Cooper says they were kept almost continually busy.
“Our attachments are the backbone of almost any demo operation we do, and every one of them played a role out here, whether it was cutting, doing cleanup or just transferring material for processing,” he says. “Because we knew how hearty some of the steel would be, we brought some very large shears, including a GXT 1555R, which we had mounted on a Cat 390F. That unit was key in tackling some of the largest material we encountered in the basement of an area known as the high bay. The beams there were 36 inches in size, with flanges in the 1.5 to 2 inches range — and the shear, which has a jaw opening of 44 inches and a depth of 46 inches, cut through them easily. Needless to say, that eliminated a lot of torch work and kept production rates up.”
He adds that the same GXT 1555, working alongside a GXT 995 on a Case 490D and a GXT 1000 on a Link-Belt 460 at a designated lay-down area, was integral in getting the material down to prepared size, which maximized the value of the recycled ferrous metal.
A Logical Approach
For taller areas of the Warren Plant — some structures were three stories high — Renascent turned to the use of three LXP processors (LXP 300, LXP 400 and LXP 800) mounted third-member on a range of excavators. The attachments were primarily used with shear jaws but, according to Cooper, the concrete cracker jaws also proved valuable.
“Because there were structures that were predominately reinforced concrete, the cracker jaws were effective in getting through the concrete and then, using the rebar cutter at the base of the jaw set, cutting the rebar as it was exposed. Doing so allowed us to get the rebar pieces, some of which were 1 inch in diameter, down to a manageable size and remove it entirely in most cases. Minimizing or removing that rebar resulted in a much cleaner feedstock for our on-site crusher.”
While the cracker jaws excelled in handling the concrete structures, Cooper says the LXP’s shear jaws were ideal for all the other material, cutting through some impressive structural pieces, including beams as large as 18 inches with a 1-inch flange.
“The real value of the LXP is its combination of performance and versatility,” Cooper says. “We are able to change out between jaw sets in as little as 20 minutes, allowing us to address whatever situation we’re facing. It’s been a great tool to have available out here.”
Getting to Their Fill
The crushing unit Cooper mentioned, a Lippman jaw crusher, is taking the more than 150,000 cubic yards of concrete they will encounter by project’s end and turning it into a good quality, easily compacted material, both for current backfill use on-site and stockpiled for future use as the site is subsequently developed.
“As a company, we are driven to recycle and recover as much material as possible,” Cooper says. “So, being able to recapture the value of that concrete as a fill product — mind you, there have been some sizeable voids to fill — not only saves us the cost of having to haul it off-site, it also saves the new developers the cost of hauling material in. It’s a win for everyone.”
Nowhere are those benefits more evident than in the aforementioned high bay section of the facility, a site that was used to house the plant’s transmission presses. Before demo, that area featured a basement that extended down as much as 20 feet below grade. With the structural steel removed, the area was filled with more than 80,000 cubic yards of the recovered and crushed concrete — material that would, for many other contractors, have been landfilled — saving Renascent those costs.
Moving on Down the Road
On the subject of recycling, the Warren Plant, like most automotive industry-related facilities, was built stout and contains a massive amount of steel. Estimates have Renascent recovering between 35,000 and 40,000 tons of scrap from the site. However, Cooper says that neither the size of the project nor the heartiness of the material they’ve been encountering have presented the biggest challenges.
“On a project of this size, in which there is so much metal, so much concrete, so much trash, it is really all about managing control of the debris,” he says. “Nothing is worse for production than tearing down a structure and having all the material down on the ground — blocking an area that needs to be clear. We have to keep the trucks hauling material off-site; if we can’t do that, no matter how efficient and productive all our Genesis attachments are — and they’ve been truly outstanding for us — productivity will suffer.”
Renascent wrapped up work at the plant at the end of November 2022. The company has already started demolishing the former AMC headquarters facility, a mere half hour southwest of Warren.