Staff photo / Ed Runyan Machines move debris Wednesday from the site of the former Realty Tower in downtown Youngstown. Demolition of the building, badly damaged in a May 28 gas explosion, should be completed by the end of the week.

YOUNGSTOWN — The entire Realty Tower should be demolished by the end of the week with the hauling of debris starting today or Friday, according to the contractor working on the downtown building.

“We’re getting real close to it being leveled,” Gary Moderalli, owner of Moderalli Excavating, Realty’s demolition contractor, said Wednesday. “There’s two rooms and (four floors) of the staircase. In the next couple of days, it will be flat.”

Enough demolition work was finished Aug. 19 — getting the former 13-story building down to four floors — to permit the nearby DoubleTree by Hilton hotel and International Towers to reopen two days later.

A May 28 gas explosion caused significant damage to Realty Tower on East Federal Street. The blast killed Akil Drake and injured nine others. Building owner YO Properties 47 LLC decided June 17 to demolish the structure on the city’s Central Square and Moderalli began that work July 12.

The initial deadline to demolish all but four floors was Aug. 5.

Moderalli said the building proved to be a challenge to demolish, and he wanted it down as safely and quickly as possible.

Moderalli’s company used a 90-ton, 190-foot-tall crane with a 5,000-pound horseshoe-shaped wrecking ball when demolition started July 12. But Moderalli said that piece of equipment “never broke” a beam.

Starting July 31, Moderalli used a rented crane that is 225 tons, 220 to 240 feet tall and has a 14,000-pound horseshoe-shaped wrecking ball. That sped up the demolition process, he said.

Moderalli said he could start hauling debris from the site as soon as today or Friday.

“We’re getting everything ready to load,” he said. “We thought we’d be hauling by now.”

After the first day or two, Moderalli said his company will use 10 trucks a day, which can each hold 35 to 40 cubic yards, to haul the debris. The landfill where the debris is being hauled permits two loads per truck per day.

Moderalli said he expects about 150 to 200 loads of debris.

The hauling will take about two weeks, he said.

In addition, Moderalli said the Realty site has to be filled in with dirt. That, he said, will take another week after hauling is done.

Also, the 400 tons of steel from the site have been hauled away, Moderalli said.

The goal since demolition started July 12 was to get Realty down to four stories to enable the nearby Stambaugh Building — home of the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel and the former Bistro 1907 by Mark Canzonetta restaurant that is being renamed Case di Canzonetta — and International Towers, which has more than 170 tenants, to reopen.

That was achieved Aug. 19.

The plan is for the restaurant to reopen Sept. 30.

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

International Towers 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.”

YO Properties and LY Property Management Group, which managed Realty Tower, said the future “development of this site will be an extensive process. In the interim, the site will be leveled and will remain vacant as we begin the lengthy process of reimagining and planning a new project of this historic site.”

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 — owned by Brian Angelili, YO Properties 47 LLC’s managing member — 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 and relocate them to its basement as part of a long-running downtown street improvement project. That was done because Angelili heads both companies and it was easier to have GreenHeart do the work than to hire someone else, Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works, has said.

Drake’s mother and sister, tenants at International Towers and former residents at Realty have filed lawsuits against YO Properties, LY, GreenHeart and Enbridge Gas Ohio LLC, the area’s natural gas company, as well as several of its sister companies.

YOUNGSTOWN COUNCIL

Youngstown council voted Wednesday on two ordinances related to Realty.

One ordinance authorized the board of control to pay $259,700 to Pro Quality Demolition of Youngstown for emergency services during the explosion.

That includes labor and equipment for search and rescue operations, assisting with the initial structural assessment of the building, assisting the NTSB, attendance at various meetings about the structure and providing temporary lighting and a field office.

Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said Pro Quality came forward offering to help find Drake’s body and secured the location in the days after the explosion.

“You really can’t put a price on that,” said Councilman Julius Oliver, D-1st Ward.

The other Realty legislation was to permit the board of control to enter into a professional services agreement with a consultant for $38,295 to provide design services and preparation of bid documents and specifications for repairs to Commerce, East Federal and Market streets.

The board is to meet today to sign that contract with MS Consultants Inc. of Youngstown.

The streets are on and near the explosion site and were heavily damaged because of the explosion and the demolition work.

The city wants to have that work start in September and be done by November, Shasho said.

That work includes fixing the street, sidewalk, an island, and curbs and lights that were damaged, Shasho said.

Have an interesting story? Contact David Skolnick by email at dskolnick@vindy.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dskolnick.