One Last Demolition in California
August 16, 2022
By: Monica Roselli
Before the company fully moved to Bullhead City, Arizona, NDA member Gopher Specialty Rentals had one last project to complete in California. In October 2021, Gopher co-owner Bob Mutch and his team — consisting of his wife Nicole and son Jonathan — set out to demolish a cotton gin processing plant in downtown Bakersfield. The cotton gin, located on 7.5 acres of land, was built in the late 1940s when cotton production was a main economic driver for the area.
After years of blight and extreme crime and homelessness occurring inside of the building, the original owners of the project contacted Mutch to demolish the site. Mutch, who completed a sister property demolition project for the owners across the street when Gopher first opened 27 years ago, agreed to take on the job on as a 100% recycling project.
The month-long project officially began on Oct. 6 with Mutch and his crew bringing down two 7,000-square-foot buildings, each standing approximately 30 feet tall. Before they could even begin, however, roughly 80 homeless people had to be relocated from the property. Once the site was cleared of all unauthorized personnel, the crew were able to get to work. After six days, the two buildings were completely demolished.
Once the contents of the first two buildings were removed, the crew then dropped the main building on the property.
“We dropped the main building in 30 minutes,” Mutch says. “At 22,000 square feet and 65 feet tall, it was like taking out a football field!”
To remove a structure of this size, Mutch used a Caterpillar 330 CL excavator to buckle some of the main support trusses and parts of the building so that it folded to the ground. Once the building was on the ground, Mutch shifted focus to the 150-foot-tall water tower on the property.
“We used a Kobelco 210 excavator with a Genesis demo pro shear to cut one of the water tower’s legs out to position the tower to fall in the direction we desired,” Mutch says. “We then placed a Caterpillar 330 CL excavator on the side we were pushing from, as well as a Kobelco with an Allied-Gator shear added on just in case we needed more pushing power.”
Once the machines were in place, Mutch and his crew torched the opposing leg of the tower. Jonathan, with Nicole by his side, gave the structure a slight nudge with the Caterpillar excavator.
“Within three seconds it was on the ground,” Mutch says. “It went over without any problems and landed exactly where we wanted it.”
The crew was able to process its materials the next day.
Once the water tower demolition was complete, the crew began processing the main building that they collapsed earlier in the project. Within a week, it was completely sheared and cleaned up.
Overall, the Gopher team was able to recycle 100% of the steel from the site, which equated to 340 tons. Recycling the steel did come with its challenges, though.
“We always had to run off thieves in pickup trucks from stealing metal,” Mutch says. “This was almost a daily morning occurrence until we dug a trench around the entire property. We did put up a chain-link fence. However, the entire fence was stolen two times off the property, which equated to around 1,500 feet of fencing.”
Despite these challenges, the demolition job was very successful, Mutch says. It was completed on Nov. 5, 2021, and while the initial ask was for Gopher to just demolish the buildings, Mutch was able to coordinate with the owners a “phase two” job, which was to remove and recycle the concrete and asphalt left behind. This job began in late November 2021 and equated to roughly 1,500 tons of asphalt and roughly 2,000 tons of concrete being recycled.
Job Stats
- Acreage: 7.5
- Crew size: 3 people
- Timeline: 1 month
- Recycled Material: 330 tons of steel
Equipment Used
- 3 Caterpillar 330 CL excavators with buckets
- Kobelco 210 excavators
- 1 LaBounty Grapple
- 1 Genesis Demo Pro 650 Shear
- 1 Allied Gator MT 20 shear