Staff photos / R. Michael Semple Gary Moderalli from Moderalli Excavating Inc. of Poland, talks Wednesday about how the demolition of the Realty Tower in downtown Youngstown is proceeding after a May 28 explosion.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Realty Tower demolition contractor is bringing in a larger crane with a heavier wrecking ball next week that he said will speed up the process of taking down the downtown building.

But Gary Moderalli, owner of Moderalli Excavating, said he can’t guarantee enough demolition work will be finished by an Aug. 2 deadline.

Since demolition started July 5 on Realty Tower, the company has used a 90-ton, 190-foot-tall crane with a 5,000-pound horseshoe-shaped wrecking ball, Moderalli said.

The new crane, which should be in use by Wednesday, is 225 tons, 220 to 240 feet tall and has a 14,000-pound wrecking ball, he said.

The company rented the larger crane “to get the work done quicker,” Moderalli said Wednesday standing in front of Realty Tower. “We can do it with ours, but it might take us a few more weeks, at least three weeks. Everybody wants it to open Aug. 2. It might be the 5th or the 8th. I don’t want to drag it out three weeks. We’re going to bring it in Monday and hopefully by Wednesday it’s running. We’re going to be able to go higher and considerably faster.”

Even with the new equipment, Moderalli said his crew is limited with the speed of demolition because the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency requires dust created by the process to be kept wet to prevent asbestos particles from becoming airborne.

“We’re making progress,” Moderalli said. “We’re doing as much as we can. You can’t make dust because there’s asbestos in it, so we’ve got to slow down a bit.”

The Aug. 2 target was to have the top nine floors of the 13-story Realty Tower down. That would permit the nearby Stambaugh Building — the home of the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel — and International Towers to reopen.

“The goal is safe, steady and getting downtown reopened,” Moderalli said. “Safety is the big thing. If it takes a little longer, it takes a little longer. We’re not going to hurt someone to rush it. If we do, in all honesty, we’ll get thrown off the job, they’ll have to get another contractor in here and it’s going to make a big mess. We’re going to do it safely.”

A May 28 gas explosion caused significant damage to the building on East Federal Street that had a Chase Bank branch on the ground floor and 23 apartments on the upper floors.

The explosion killed Akil Drake, a Chase worker, and injured nine others in the building.

Despite some wanting the building to be saved, YO Properties 47 LLC, the building’s owner, said five structural engineers said Realty Tower could potentially be stabilized, but its longevity could not be guaranteed or insured. The decision was made to demolish the building.

Stambaugh was closed May 28, right after the explosion, because of its proximity to Realty Tower.

International Towers, which has about 170 tenants, was evacuated June 14, four days after Youngstown city officials got a structural engineering report stating all buildings within a 210-foot radius of Realty Tower should be closed because they’re in a “collapse zone.”

Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works, said Wednesday the initial Aug. 2 deadline was because that was the date of the Y-Live concert with Tim McGraw at Wean Park, a short distance from the demolition site. Because of the explosion and planned demolition, it was announced July 3 the concert was moved to Sept. 27, 2025.

“We didn’t demand that date,” Shasho said of Aug. 2. “It had a lot to do with the concert. We want to get the hotel opened and get residents back into International Towers. But we want it down safely and quickly. Once they get the new crane in, it will move significantly.”

Shasho said the demolition work “is very challenging,” and “it’s taking a long time. They’re making progress. It’s not an easy process. We want it down as safely as possible.”

Moderalli said he’s in daily contact with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which limits how much can be done because of the dangers involved with demolition.

The city hired MS Consultants Inc. of Youngstown to serve as its engineering consultant to monitor the demolition on its behalf.

Before city council Monday is an item allowing the board of control to pay $63,000 for that work.

REALTY ROOF

Moderalli said the biggest obstacle facing his company is taking down the 12-inch-thick steel roof.

He said his company is demolishing large sections of the building to weaken the roof and the larger crane will eventually “push the roof down. We’ll be able to hit the beams and break them. We’ll hit that and it will fall in. It doesn’t want to break. I thought it would have been easier, but I’m fine with it. It’s probably better because it’s not going to fall. It’s not going to collapse.”

Moderalli said crews are using cutting torches on the roof.

“We’re going to cut it part way and then bend the roof over,” he said. “We’ll weaken it and then bend it.”

The roof is about 30% to 40% of the entire job, Moderalli said.

Moderalli said both cranes will be used once the second one arrives — “one to demo and the other for the torch.”

The demolition work should take six weeks to complete, Moderalli said.

After the work needed to reopen Stambaugh and International Towers is finished, the Realty Tower debris will be taken to a certified landfill near Canton, Moderalli said.

Moderalli said each truck used is limited to two loads at the landfill per day — a truck can hold 35 to 40 cubic yards of debris — and he wants to use 10 trucks. He expects about 150 loads of debris, so it would take about 15 days to remove it from the site.

The steel from Realty Tower will be sent to Vallourec, Moderalli said. Vallourec, located in Youngstown, makes seamless steel pipe for the oil and gas industry.

Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said last week he was concerned about the progress of the demolition, but was assured by Moderalli and Brian Angelili, who owns YO Properties 47 LLC, that the effort is progressing.

A June 14 preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation, stated a four-person scrap-removal crew, engaged by GreenHeart Companies of Boardman — also owned by Angelili — was working in a basement area underneath the building’s sidewalk removing old utility lines when a crew member sawed three times into a pipe mistakenly believing it to not have natural gas in it. That caused the explosion.

The city gave GreenHeart a no-bid $140,133 contract to remove utility lines from under the sidewalk in front of Realty Tower and relocate them to its basement as part of a long-running downtown street improvement project.

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