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Daily Record JACKSONVILLE
ST. JOHNS RIVER POWER PARK IMPLOSION
THE MATHIS REPORT
Daily Record
1,500 pounds of dynamite: Towers prepared to tumble
JACKSONVILLE
BY SCOTT SAILER
Daily Record Daily Record
EDITORIAL RESEARCH DIRECTOR
N
ow you see it. Soon you won’t. When the St. Johns River Power Park started producing electricity in 1987, its 1,264-megawatt coal-fired electric generating plant was considered stateof-the-art technology. Now it’s obsolete. The plant, co-owned by JEA and Florida Power & Light Co., closed Jan. 5 and is scheduled for implosion at 8 a.m. Saturday. JEA said closing the plant, which consumed 4.5 million tons of coal a year, reduced its carbon footprint by 30 percent. For 2½ months, Total Wrecking & Environmental LLC has been preparing to implode the two 464-foot-tall concrete and steel cooling towers at 11201 New Berlin Road. There are no designated viewing areas for the public. Here’s a Q&A with Total Wrecking about the demolition: What are the details of the demolition and the implosion? Inside the cooling towers was a PVC honeycomb-shaped material supported by concrete columns and beams. To prepare for the implosion, Total Wrecking removed that material for recycling. Hammer drills were used to bore 3,800 holes for explosives. The areas of the shell where explosives will be loaded on the inside were covered with chain link fence and geotextile fabric covers the outside. The work took more than 10 weeks. The holes will be loaded with a total of 1,500 pounds of dynamite and wired with more than 12,000 feet of detonation cord and 3,800 blasting caps.
What factors do you consider to prepare for the implosion? The location of holes is designed to cause the controlled failure of the structure, so that gravity will take over and the structure will fall in the direction intended. The placement and amount of explosives is the proprietary work of Controlled Demolition Inc. The frequen-
JACKSONVILLE
JACKSONVILLE
Mary Arditti, former SJRPP employee
The cooling towers at the St. Johns River Power Park.
cy and spacing of the holes and amount of dynamite in each hole is determined by the thickness of the concrete and the amount of reinforcing steel.
How will the debris be recycled? The towers contain more than 100,000 tons of concrete and nearly 4,000 tons of reinforcing steel. The concrete will be crushed for reuse as construction and road base. Plans are to recycle 99 percent of the debris. How do you control the dust? As many as five dust-control machines, known as “Dust Boss” and “Monsoon” machines, will be set up. The machines blow streams of finely misted water several hundred feet high to capture and knock down dust. What safety measures will be in place? The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and a private security firm are being used for road closures and security. How many people involved in the demolition are former JEA employees? There are about 20 former JEA employees involved. Total Wrecking and APTIM are the primary contractors working for JEA. APTIM was retained
by JEA as the construction manager to oversee the plant decommissioning. How many people are involved in the demolition? So far, more than 100 employees of contractors and subcontractors are involved. That number can fluctuate from 30-200 at any given time.
What roads will be closed during the implosion? A section of New Berlin Road will be closed from Faye Road to Port Jacksonville Parkway. Parts of Island Drive and William Ostner Road will be closed. The roads will be closed from 6:45 a.m. until 9 a.m. JSO will be controlling road closures. Other than media, who will attend? Total Wrecking and the nonprofit Dreams Come True have partnered for a charity auction to “push the plunger” on implosion day. Dreams Come True will issue VIP badges to up to 100 people. The money raised will be used to fulfill the dreams of area children with life-threatening illnesses. The auction deadline is 5 p.m. Friday. For more information, visit dreamscometrue.org. SSAILER@JAXDAILYRECORD.COM (904) 356-2466
KAREN BRUNE MATHIS EDITOR
One Imeson sold for $47.75M
It’s a 192 percent increase over what the building sold for in 2011. The investment group that bought One Imeson in late 2011 for almost $16.3 million sold it Wednesday for $47.75 million to Arsenault Holdings LLC. The two-story, 1.7 millionsquare-foot distribution and office building comprises 1.45 million square feet of industrial space and almost 250,000 square feet of office space. Seller Jason Isaacson said his group invested up to $7 million into upgrades and leased out 1.6 million square feet. He said Thursday more than 90 percent of the property is leased. “We did what we set out to do in the beginning,” Isaacson said, which was to bring new businesses to town and create jobs. “Our job is not always to be a caretaker of the asset but to turn the asset around,” he said. “We accomplished both of those goals of making it a strong and profitable investment for us and one that Jacksonville can be proud of,” he said. Tenants include Bacardi, General Dynamics Information Technology, Komyo America (Honda), Venus Swimwear, MaxSEE MATHIS, PAGE 2
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