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Project admin says Old City Hall demolition should take three months

Windsor's former city hall hasn't been completely demolished just yet, but the process is on its way.

Demolition crews began the process of tearing down Old City Hall yesterday, and project administrator Wadah Al-Yassiri says that he hopes to complete the project within three months.

Al-Yassiri explained that crews will sort through the rubble during demolition, so that they can recycle "as much material as possible, because we truly want to make this a model green demolition."

CBC News previously reported that the plan is to recycle 80 per cent of the material used in the construction of Old City Hall.

Tony Smyth/CBC
Tony Smyth/CBC

In addition to recycling any material that they can, Al-Yassiri explained that demolition crews will also crush concrete material and bricks into a fine granular material that will be used to backfill the hole after the basement has been excavated.

"This is win-win situation, because this way we will minimize the amount of waste that will go through [landfills]," he said.

"We will minimize the carbon footprint of traffic for trucks going back and forth, and we will save on material .... we are utilizing the same clean material that we are generating from the building.

Tony Smyth/CBC
Tony Smyth/CBC

Once demolition is complete, Al-Yassiri said that construction crews will build a "safe pedestrian walkway in preparation for stage three of the project."

Stage three will be the improvement of the Civic Plaza and Esplanade.

"We are, as we speak, working with our city planning department to come up with the design for the future civic plaza," said Al-Yassiri.

Tony Smyth/CBC
Tony Smyth/CBC

"We will be working through that process in coordination with the mayor and city council, and we will have consultations with the public of what they would like to see at the end of the day."

As for budgetary concerns, Al-Yassiri said that he was proud to be able to complete the construction of New City Hall "on time and on budget," and that he plans on doing the same with the demolition of Old City Hall.

"We're hoping at the end of demolition we'll still be in the black, saving a few bucks to utilize towards the civic plaza improvement."