Staff photo / Ed Runyan Demolition work on Realty Tower downtown continued Friday.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Realty Tower demolition contractor expects to have enough of the downtown structure torn down by the middle or end of the week of Aug. 11 to allow buildings near it to reopen.

But the entire project at the building won’t be finished for an additional four to six weeks, said Gary Moderalli, owner of Moderalli Excavating, Realty’s demolition contractor. That’s because all of the building has to come down with the remains hauled away and the site filled in, he said.

“The staircase takes some time,” Moderalli said Friday. “We have to cut it by hand. It’s going pretty good. It’s moving along well, but it takes time.”

Moderalli said the beams by the elevator had to be cut by hand because of their thickness. While he thought it would take time, most of the beams were down in three days, he said.

Also, about 40 feet of the smokestack has been demolished with about 90 feet to go as of Friday.

“It’s a tough building to get down,” Moderalli said. “It’s going well. By Sunday, Monday, you’ll see a considerable difference. I want to be done.”

The goal since demolition started July 12 has been to get the former 13-story Realty Tower down to four stories to enable the nearby Stambaugh Building — home of the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel — and International Towers — which has more than 170 tenants — to reopen.

“Hopefully we get everything down to four floors in a week,” Moderalli said. “We’re down to four floors in several sections. It’s got to be safe.”

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

Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works, wants Realty down “safely and quickly” to reopen the two buildings and the well-traveled streets nearby.

“We’d like to see it done,” Shasho said. “They’re making good progress. They’re working very hard at it, long days, many days. They’re putting in more effort than we expected. It’s a challenging building.”

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 could potentially be stabilized, but its longevity could not be guaranteed or insured. The decision was made June 17 to demolish the building on Central Square.

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.”

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.

Since July 31, Moderalli has used a rented crane that is 225 tons, 220 to 240 feet tall and has a 14,000-pound horseshoe-shaped wrecking ball.

“We made a lot more progress in a week with the heavier ball and the bigger crane,” he said. “It’s much faster. The middle (of the building) is opened up and the top is off. That’s making it easier.”

Moderalli said demolition is also slowed because the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency requires dust created by the process to be kept wet to prevent asbestos particles from becoming airborne.

“It takes time,” he said. “We can only go so fast. Also, we don’t want anybody to get hurt.”

REST OF PROJECT

The entire building should be down in two to three weeks, Moderalli said.

“I want to get rid of the crane in two weeks,” he said.

The building’s debris will be taken to Minerva Enterprises, a construction and debris landfill in Stark County.

Moderalli said he will use 10 trucks a day — which can each hold 35 to 40 cubic yards — to haul the debris. The landfill permits two loads per truck per day.

Moderalli said he expects about 150 to 200 loads of debris. In addition, Moderalli said the Realty site has to be filled in with dirt.

“We’re lining up the trucks to haul it,” he said. “We’ve got to haul material out. We may have to stop demolition (after next week) to start hauling or we may wait until it’s down.”

The hauling and filling together should take two to three weeks, Moderalli said.

The tenants at the 23 apartments that were at Realty had to evacuate immediately after the May 28 explosion. They were never permitted to return to their homes.

Four members of the city fire department, including Chief Barry Finley, went into the building July 10 to retrieve a small list of items provided by the tenants for some personal belongings that fit into bags with dimensions of 22 inches by 14 inches by 9 inches.

YO Properties 47 LLC, which owns the property, and LY Property Management LLC, which managed Realty, said in a Friday statement: “We have been monitoring the demolition’s progress closely and have been assured that the process is safely moving forward. We aim to restore order in the city as quickly as possible. However, safety and patience (are) paramount. We respect the process and procedures that ensure a safe demolition.”

Asked what will be done with the downtown location once Realty is demolished, the companies said: “We are hopeful for the future of our city and plan on contributing to its progress for decades to come.”

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, Shasho has said.

Shasho said he hopes the downtown street improvement project will be finished by November.

“We want traffic flowing through there by the end of the pavement season” in November, he said. “If we need to finish some landscaping in the spring that’s fine. We can still open the streets.”

Because of damage caused by the explosion and the demolition to a section of Market Street, the city will seek proposals later this month for improvement work there, Shasho said.

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