Project Details

Client: St. Paul Public Safety
Location: St. Paul, MN
Services: Demolition

Overview

For more than a decade the future of Saint Paul’s ‘Pedro Park’ was up in the air.

14 years after the Pedro family bequeathed the site of their three-generation family business “Pedro Luggage” to the city for use as a park, Bolander was awarded the demolition of the adjacent building, Saint Paul’s Public Safety Annex, a four-story cast in place concrete building that was constructed almost a century ago.

The demolition of this building was the final piece of the puzzle to make way for the future .87-acre Pedro Park, taking up almost ½ a city block, the park will eventually feature walkways, open lawn space, public art, a fenced dog run and more.

The demolition project started with more than a quarter million dollars for removal of asbestos, lead, regulated waste, chemicals, PCB’s and old fuel tanks.

An areaway that runs under the 10th street sidewalk was completely filled with concrete lean fill to make sure the space would not collapse and could hold the loads of the adjacent road once the building structure was demolished.

Once the building was ready for physical demolition, Bolander’s 230,000 lb Liebherr 960 high reach demolition machine began chewing through the stout cast in place concrete building.  The building that previously housed some of Saint Paul’s Police department including heavy armored vehicles on two levels contained thousands of tons of concrete and heavy steel rebar.

Reducing the building to rubble was a great team effort by many members of Bolanders Demolition Team led by General Superintendent Dave Durand and Site Sup Eric Tuckner.  Once the building was gone, our Earthwork crews led by General Earthwork Superintendent Justin Degnan and Site Sup Justin Coleman brought in close to 10,000 cubic yards of soil from various other projects to create an interim green space that will be used by the public beginning this fall until the final park design is completed and fully funded.

Carl Bolander and Sons was proud to take part in making way for a new chapter of this area of our hometown at the corner of 10th St east and Robert Street.