Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI) is a controlled demolition firm headquartered in Phoenix, Maryland. The firm was founded by Jack Loizeaux who used dynamite to remove tree stumps in the

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

area, and moved on to using explosives to take down chimneys, overpasses and small buildings in the 1940s. The company has demolished several notable buildings by implosion, including the

Gettysburg National Tower The Gettysburg National Tower was a hyperboloid observation tower that overlooked the Gettysburg National Military Park and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, from 1974 to 2000. The privately owned tower attracted many of the battlefield's visitors, who ...

, the Seattle Kingdome, and the uncollapsed portion of the Champlain Towers South condominium.

Records

The firm has claimed world records for a series of 1998 projects: The June 23 demolition of the 1,201-foot-high Omega Radio Tower in

Trelew Trelew (, from cy, tref "town" and the name of the founder, Lewis Jones) is a city in the eastern part of the Chubut Province of Argentina. Located in Patagonia, the city is the largest and most populous in the low valley of the Chubut River, wi ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, "the tallest manmade structure ever felled with explosives"; The August 16 implosion of the 17-building Villa Panamericana and Las Orquideas public housing complex in

San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan (, , ; Spanish for "Saint John") is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the juri ...

, "the most buildings shot in a single implosion sequence"; and the October 24 project at the J. L. Hudson Department Store in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, which at in height became "the tallest building & the tallest structural steel building ever imploded" and its making it "the largest single building ever imploded".Satchell, Michael
"Bringing down the house"
'' U.S. News & World Report''. Accessed September 17, 2008.

Selected projects

Alfred P. Murrah Building, Oklahoma City

On May 24, 1995, the firm was responsible for the demolition of the

Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was a United States federal government complex located at 200 N.W. 5th Street in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. On April 19, 1995, at 9:02 a.m. the building was the target of the Oklahoma City bombing ...

after its bombing on April 19, 1995.

The Seattle Kingdome

On March 26, 2000, the firm used 4,450 pounds of dynamite placed in 5,905 carefully sited holes and of detonation cord inserted over a period of four months to take down the 25,000-ton concrete roof of the Kingdome in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

in 16.8 seconds, one day before the 24th birthday of the stadium that had been the home of the

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion team ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

and the Seattle Seahawks of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

. The total cost for the demolition project was $9 million. The firm planned the collapse of the roof to prevent its simultaneous free fall, creating a delay pattern that would break the roof into pieces and setting up 15-foot-high earth berms on the floor of the stadium to absorb the impact of the falling concrete. The demolition of the Kingdome established the record for the largest structure, by volume, ever demolished with explosives. The implosion of the 125,000-ton concrete structure did not cause a single crack in the foundation of the new stadium being built away.

Gettysburg National Tower

CDI demolished the Gettysburg National Tower on July 3, 2000, which was the 137th anniversary of the final day of the

Battle of Gettysburg The Battle of Gettysburg () was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. In the battle, Union Major General George Meade's Army of the Po ...

. The demolition was done for free for the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

. The tower was felled by of explosives in front of a crowd of 10,000.

World Trade Center Site

On September 22, 2001, eleven days after the

9/11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...

, a preliminary cleanup plan for the

World Trade Center site The World Trade Center site, often referred to as "Ground Zero" or "the Pile" immediately after the September 11 attacks, is a 14.6-acre (5.9 ha) area in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The site is bounded by Vesey Street to the north ...

was delivered by Controlled Demolition, Inc. in which Mark Loizeaux, president of CDI, emphasized the importance of protecting the

slurry wall A slurry wall is a civil engineering technique used to build reinforced concrete walls in areas of soft earth close to open water, or with a high groundwater table. This technique is typically used to build diaphragm (water-blocking) walls surro ...

(or "

the bathtub The Bathtub refers to the underground foundation area at the site of the World Trade Center and accompanying buildings in New York City. The term bathtub is something of a misnomer, as the area does not hold any water; rather the purpose of its d ...

") which kept the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

from flooding the WTC's basement.

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40

The tower was disassembled during late 2007 and early 2008. Demolition of the Mobile Service Structure (MSS), by means of a controlled explosion, occurred on 2008-04-27. ''National Geographic Channel: Man Made: Rocket Tower'' has a full episode on the demolition

Martin Tower

Martin Tower, the 21-story world headquarters building of defunct

Bethlehem Steel The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For most of the 20th century, it was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its succe ...

and the tallest building in

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781. Of this, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19, ...

, was imploded by Controlled Demolition on May 19, 2019, at a reported cost of $575,000.

Champlain Towers South

The company was contracted to demolish the remaining portion of the 12-story condominium building near Miami Beach, Florida, after it partially collapsed on June 24, 2021; the work was expedited due to the potential threat of

Hurricane Elsa Hurricane Elsa was the earliest-forming fifth named storm on record in the Atlantic Ocean, surpassing Edouard of the previous year, and was the first hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. It formed over the central tropical Atlantic, ...

. The demolition occurred on July 4, 2021, after only a day of preparation, including placement of explosives; city officials had feared that the demolition could take weeks. As the still-standing structure was unstable, it was considered unsafe to enter and CDI had originally estimated that the demolition could not occur until the following day, since the work had to be done carefully and slowly to avoid a premature collapse. This risk of collapse and its risk to rescuers warranted the controlled demolition, which was directed away from the original collapse footprint.

Other projects

Pruitt–Igoe The Wendell O. Pruitt Homes and William Igoe Apartments, known together as Pruitt–Igoe (), were joint urban housing projects first occupied in 1954 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. The complex consisted of 33 eleven-story high rises, ...

Traymore Hotel The Traymore Hotel was a resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Begun as a small boarding house in 1879, the hotel expanded and became one of the city's premier resorts. As Atlantic City began to decline in its popularity as a resort town, durin ...

* Dunes Hotel and Casino *

J. L. Hudson Department Store and Addition The J. L. Hudson Building ("Hudson's") was a department store located at 1206 Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit, Michigan. It was constructed beginning in 1911, with additions throughout the years, before being "completed" in 1946, and named af ...

Three Rivers Stadium Three Rivers Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1970 to 2000. It was home to the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). Buil ...

Market Square Arena Market Square Arena was an indoor arena in Indianapolis. Completed in 1974, at a cost of $23 million, it seated 16,530 for basketball and 15,993 for ice hockey. Seating capacity for concerts and other events was adjusted by the use of large cu ...

* RCA Dome *

Ocean Tower Ocean Tower SPI was an unfinished, 31-story condominium in South Padre Island, Cameron County, Texas, United States, that was imploded when it was deemed unsafe to remain standing. Construction was halted in May 2008 when cracks formed in th ...

Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino Trump Plaza was a hotel and casino on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, owned by Trump Entertainment Resorts. Designed by architect Alan Lapidus, it operated from May 15, 1984 until September 16, 2014. History The beginning The ...

Ferrybridge Power Station The Ferrybridge power stations were a series of three coal-fired power stations on the River Aire near Ferrybridge in West Yorkshire, England, in operation from 1927 to 2016 on a site next to the junction of the M62 and A1(M) motorways. The ...

sub-contracted by Keltbray Decommissioning

References

External links

Controlled Demolition, Inc.
by

Nova (TV series) A nova is an exploding star. Nova or NOVA may also refer to: People with the name Single name * Nova (singer), a Puerto Rican reggaeton and hip hop singer, part of duo Nova & Jory * Nova (wrestler), ring name of American pro wrestler Mike Buc ...

Loizeaux Group, LLC Youtube channel
{{Authority control Companies based in Baltimore County, Maryland Demolition American companies established in 1947 1947 establishments in Maryland