Demolition of helix core begins

It collapsed nearly 16 months ago. On Saturday a demolition crew began tearing down what was left of the South Avenue Parking ramp. “Were demolishing the center core of the helix its about a 90 foot structure,” said Rochester City Engineer Jim McIntosh. McIntosh is overseeing the demolition. “The machine that’s up there now is a cruncher pulverizer. I liken it to the "packman" game its just taking little bites out of the garage and bringing that down,” said McIntosh. An engineering report said it was corroded steel and tendons that caused the exit ramp to collapse on April 21 last year. Amazingly, no one was injured but several cars were trapped inside. Benjamin Williams remembers that day. He was just across the street at the library. “Just a lot of confusion people running around and carrying on they thought probably it was 9-11,” said Williams. Since the collapse officials have stepped up inspections on city parking garages from every five years to once a year. In the meantime, the city officials now have to decide what to do once this structure is gone. “Anything from a pocket park, a little park to compliment the park that’s adjacent to here to some kind of i think the desirable use would be some kind of mixed use development,” said McIntosh. A new development might be nice, but Benjamin Williams has a better idea. “Id like to see another extension of the library this is one of the great libraries so I think that they should do an extension of it,” added Williams. McIntosh says the cost of the demolition runs is between 300 and 400 thousand dollars. It’s expected to be completed in about to weeks.