W.E. O’Neil is currently completing the demolition of the old 800,000-square-foot Children’s Memorial Hospital site in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
The firm is using a green approach, where 100 percent of the 27,000 cubic yards of concrete removed from the existing structures will be reprocessed on site and used as back fill on the existing site. In addition, 97 percent of the other materials have been recycled, including the steel.
Crushing and reusing this material eliminates approximately 12,000 trucks from entering and exiting the site. This approach alleviates neighborhood road congestion and noise, which is very important to the surrounding community. It also minimizes fuel and trucking costs and reduces the duration of the demolition work by several months.
A significant amount of the material has been diverted from landfills, resulting in environmental benefits, minimal neighborhood disruption and cost and schedule reductions.
W.E. O’Neil Construction is serving as the general contractor; Hines and McCaffery Interests are the development partners, and Omega Demolition Corporation is serving as demolition contractor.
