Demolition work under way at DESC’s Delridge site

| Delridge | DESC Delridge project | West Seattle news

Last time we checked in with DESC regarding status/timetable on the 66-unit Delridge Supportive Housing project, executive director Bill Hobson said construction was expected to start in the first half of November. However, we noticed there’s work on the site now – demolition crews (you can’t see the backhoe in our photo, but it’s there). So we checked back with Hobson, who explained via e-mail:

We are demolishing the buildings on the site under a separate demolition permit. We wanted to get this done during August just to get the site cleaned up, but the general contractor encountered significant amounts of asbestos that had to be abated per code and delayed the schedule. The demolition contractor mobilized on site Wednesday and has completed the prep work … and hopefully will have the buildings down and the site cleaned of in the next 10 work days. Actual construction will not begin until sometime between Nov 1st and 10th.

Things are very busy along that section of Delridge right now; SDOT is also doing sidewalk ramp work at the Delridge/Findlay intersection.

D I D September 30, 2012 (12:44 pm)

Yet another indicator of the lack of creativity on the part of Bill Hobson and the DESC. Here was a perfect opportunity to have had the future or current DESC tenants, Nickelsville, or other homeless, jobless or skill less people to actually learn something, like how to take apart the small houses by hand with crowbars, prybars and sledgehammers. It is done all the time by progressive builders and speciality subcontractors. Instead, the buildings and material appear ready to be crushed into bits by heavy machinery and a trip to the landfill. The DESC/homeless trainee’s could have then sorted and denailed salvageable lumber and other materials for pickup and resale by Second Use. But nope, there is nothing to learn here for the DESC tenants and jobless, just more hand outs, instead of a hand up. Oh yeah, you and I get to pay for all of it with our taxes.

Sorry, comment time is over.