Former Homewood School Demoliton

Background

The Former Homewood School is located at the corner of Hamilton Avenue and N. Lang Avenue in the Homewood South Neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The site is well situated to be redeveloped into a valuable and centralized community asset by expanding the public park located at the rear of the property. Following the deconstruction of the building, the URA will transfer the property to the City of Pittsburgh. The City of Pittsburgh will be undertaking a community planning process to plan for the expansion of the park.

Deconstruction Project Goals

• Utilize sustainable practices in the redevelopment of neighborhoods - Specifically, this project will deconstruct, or selectively dismantle the former Homewood School in order to re-use, re-purpose, or recycle many of the building components diverting them from the landfill. This project intends to divert 98% of non-hazardous materials by weight from the landfill.
  
  
• Develop workforce opportunities - The URA partnered with Construction Junction to salvage materials within the building. Construction Junction worked with Landforce crews to provide 297.75 hours of paid training for 6 crew members and 80 hours of training for crew leaders.

Schedule

• Abatement and Remediation: April 2019
• Demolition Work: May – Mid - June 2019
• Site work: July 2019

Air Quality Controls

The URA requires our contractors to take thorough measures to prevent the spreading of dust and/or other contaminants in the air.

In order to prevent the spreading of dust during demolition, the work must be kept thoroughly wetted down.

The URA has contracted with an independent consulting company which is trained and experienced in the appropriate asbestos abatement procedures in order to properly monitor the asbestos removal process and to conduct air monitoring before, during, and after the asbestos removal.   

To mitigate any release of asbestos fibers, all Asbestos Containing Materials (ACM) being removed are wetted and saturated to the substrate with an amended water solution. The ACM is then kept wet and saturated until it can be sealed and containerized for disposal. All asbestos removal activities are performed inside a sealed work area containment that is kept under negative pressure and the air cleaned and filtered through a 3-part filtering system that includes a High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter. The HEPA filter captures 99.97% of all fibers. 

All ACM being removed are handled in such a manner so as to prevent the release of any fibers from such ACM during such removal and disposal.  

The independent consulting company monitors the ambient air outside of the asbestos removal containment areas within the building and conducts routine and daily inspections.   

Once the asbestos abatement has been completed, the independent consulting company will perform a final visual inspection to identify that the ACMs have been successfully removed, followed by final air clearance sampling of the containment work areas.    

The Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) will conduct a final clearance inspection of each work area containment that consists of:

• Confirming all asbestos removal/clean-up and clearance air sampling requirements of the ACHD asbestos regulations (ARTICLE XXI) have been met; and
  
  
• Confirming there is no asbestos-containing waste material or visible residue remaining on any surface or object in the work area.

Pest Control

Before demolition work is commenced, thorough and efficient measures shall be pursued in order to prevent the migration of rodents and other pests, by exterminating them from all structures to be demolished as part of URA contracts. URA contractors are required to:        

• Employ only experienced exterminators    
  
  
• Display warning signs in conspicuous places
  
  
• Distribute bait three days prior to beginning demolition of any buildings. 
  
  
• Methods and materials used for baiting shall meet with the approval of the Environmental Protection Agency and shall be used in accordance with the manufacture’s label instructions.
  
  
• Proof of extermination by an experienced exterminator must be submitted to the URA and verified complete prior to any demolition work.