NEW ORLEANS — Contractors hired to demolish the partially-collapsed Hard Rock Hotel said Thursday they could delicately recover two dead bodies trapped in the debris in 30 days and demolish the most dangerous portion of the building by mid-July, if the city approves their demolition permits.
A demolition contractor and two structural engineers presented testimony at a civil court hearing held over Zoom, with Orleans Parish Civil District Judge Kern Reese presiding and 100 people in attendance remotely, including dozens of attorneys, the testifying witnesses, several news reporters and other observers.
The witnesses testified that their traditional demolition method would be safer than previous city-backed plans to implode the Hard Rock. They said an implosion would put more workers at risk, would make recovery of the two dead bodies less likely and could cause tremors that would damage nearby property.
Reese ordered attorneys for the hotel owners, 1031 Canal Development, to answer the city’s technical questions by Monday, and for both sides to come to an agreement on the demolition by next Wednesday. If they can’t, Reese said he would hold a hearing next Thursday to decide whether the city can force the developer to post a $5 million bond under a recent code enforcement judgment.
Jeremy Frye of Marschel Wrecking, the project manager for 1031 Canal’s proposed demolition team, testified the demolition would happen in four phases, starting as early as next week. Marscel Wrecking is a St. Louis-based subcontractor working with Kolb Grading, the prime contractor hired by 1031 Canal.
The first phase, he said, would be to use cranes to remove the pieces of another crane that was being used to build the hotel. A different demolition contractor tried to bring two tower cranes down in October, but the top portion of one of them still rests precariously over a section of the building that didn’t collapse.
Frye said his team would be able to remove that damaged crane in two pieces.
At the same time, Frye said his crews would demolish three small structures in a neighboring lot because there would be no way to protect those buildings. “Debris will definitely fall on those buildings and damage them,” he said.
But Frye and two engineers consulting on the project, Ashlee Peno of SID Engineering out of St. Louis and Walter Zehner, a structural engineer in New Orleans, expressed confidence that their demolition plan would not cause damage to any other nearby buildings.
“This is a safe plan that has been very carefully and very thoroughly thought out,” said Peno, the engineer of record who signed off on the plan.
The second phase of the demolition would be recovering and removing the remains of two workers trapped under piles of twisted steel and crumbled concrete slabs. Frye said that could be done delicately, by removing the debris piece-by-piece from above and around the remains, in a matter of 30 days.
The third and most dangerous phase of the demolition would be collapsing the remaining portions of steel-framed structure, from the 18th floor rooftop down to the 8th floor concrete mezzanine. Frye said that could be done in 48 days, which he said could be in mid-July.
“Right now, that is the most unstable part of the building,” he said.
“We are not swinging a wrecking ball at this building. All forces exerted will be vertical, forcing debris down into the footprint of the building,” Peno said.
Frye said the 3-foot-thick concrete slab on the 8th floor was designed to hold the weight of the top 10 floors, it remains stable and therefore should be able to handle the force of the rest of the top floors collapsing on top of it.
The fourth phase of the demolition would be to take down the bottom eight floors, which were designed as a parking deck and are made of pre-cast concrete. Frye said the city would be able to open Canal Street to lake-bound traffic before those bottom floors are demolished because the fall zone would be only 30 feet for that phase.
“It’s a very controlled, precise, accurate demolition when you get to that phase of the building,” Frye said.
The testimony Thursday was the clearest sign yet that demolition could finally happen after six months of tense negotiations between the city and 1031 Canal and shifting demolition methods.
It also comes on the heels of some of the most rancorous rhetoric by both sides this week, with 1031 Canal’s attorneys accusing the city of “bad faith” to promote a contractor that was hired to implode the building, but could not come up with enough insurance coverage for that quicker, more expensive process.
“Despite salvos and press releases we’ve made a lot of progress recently,” 1031 Canal’s attorney Kerry Miller said at the start of the hearing.
City Attorney Sunni LeBeouf said she didn’t disagree with Miller, but wanted to make sure 1031 Canal answered all of the city’s questions and concerns before a permit could be issued. LeBeouf asked Reese to order 1031 Canal to pay code violation fines and properly secure the property.
She noted the owners had been paying for only two off-duty police officers to guard the building, when five were needed to keep intruders out, and she said 1031 Canal had purchased only enough fuel to light the property for one more day.
Reese said he didn’t want to wade into the city’s code enforcement process, but urged 1031 Canal to comply with the city’s requests.
“I’m not going to order you, but I urge you to give consideration to Ms. LeBeouf’s request that the building is adequately secured,” Reese said to Miller. He scheduled a meeting for next Wednesday to see if the city is ready to grant a demolition permit.
“I want to remind everyone how incredibly important timing is here,” the judge said. “It is imperative we move forward.”