Bricks Begin to Tumble from Younkers Building
Renovation Makes Way for the River Center Development Project
July 13, 2007
By Stephanie Brien
sbrien@greenbaypressgazette.com
A small crowd along the Fox River cheered as the Y from the Younkers sign was ripped from the top of the old five-story department store on Thursday morning and a hole was ripped into the building's west wall.
The symbolic gesture was part of the River Center development project, which will feature rental lofts, condominiums, retail space and a children's museum along the river.
"This really is the right thing to do, to connect the city of Green Bay with its waterfront," Mayor Jim Schmitt said just moments before the Younkers nameplate tumbled to the ground.
Fifteen years ago, Toni Burnett worked downtown at Prange's, which became Younkers.
"It was a vibrant, exciting downtown," Burnett said. "We just never got back on it."
Now the executive director of the Children's Museum of Green Bay, Burnett is optimistic about the future and excited about construction beginning on the new museum this fall and its grand opening in fall 2008. Along with the museum's opening will be a new riverfront boardwalk accessible to the public.
In early 2005, the Children's Museum closed its Washington Commons location in part because families didn't feel safe parking in the mall ramp when no one was around, Burnett said.
"The downtown needs to be the cultural center of town," Burnett said. "Green Bay needs to bring back the downtown."
After Thursday's symbolic demolition, Burnett and others grabbed bricks as a memento of what downtown used to be and is intended to be again.
The project has been under construction for almost four weeks but formally began the demolition of the Younkers building Thursday with what developer John Vetter called a "green breaking."
By diverting more than 80 percent of the building material from landfills, Vetter said crews will reuse as much material as they can. That includes maintaining structural beams in the Younkers building and using old brick to fill in shallow areas on the building site.
"While people are watching this project, we want them to know we are doing this right as far as the environment," Schmitt said.
According to Lloyd Copeland, who is overseeing the demolition work by Midwest Rail and Dismantling of Milwaukee, crews will be reusing or recycling ceiling tiles, wood beams, carpeting, lights and metals among many other materials.
To help with the demolition, Copeland's crew has a mechanical robot that can enter potentially dangerous sites to help excavate material. Operated by a remote control or wire, the robot is "more productive than a machine with operator," Copeland said.
When the lofts take the place of the Younkers building, they will feature a partial green roof, which has vegetation to divert rainwater runoff. It will be one of many sustainable features in the new complex.
Construction on the River Center rental loft apartments is scheduled to start in mid-August and be completed in late summer 2008.
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