GARAGE DEMOLITION A TELLING SIGN OF BLACK HAWK’S FUTURE
Garage implosion is emblematic of Black Hawk’s hope for future
black hawk» As a chilly crowd counted down the implosion early Wednesday of a five-story parking garage in this mining-town-turned-gaming-mecca, their anticipation was for more than the loud noises and dust storm to come.
It was a big step toward Black Hawk’s hopes for a future as another Colorado outdoor recreation destination, launching a renaissance outside of slot machines and poker tables that includes hundreds of new hotel rooms and an emphasis on protecting and embracing the environment.
Instead of demolishing the Monarch Casino’s old garage from the top down, its owners decided to use explosives to limit the destruction’s impact — a potentially more expensive endeavor. Workers wrapped the building in what was effectively an industrial-grade trash bag to prevent pollution of the nearby North Clear Creek and brought in experts from across the country to oversee the project.
“Black Hawk is at a pivotal point in its new development and second wave,” said Mark Loizeaux, president of the Baltimorebased Controlled Demolition Inc. which was hired for the job. “They are looking for the best means of getting down something safely. Time is money. It was decided that this had the least impact on the community, the least impact on the environment.”
The implosion of the 19-year-old parking garage is part of a $400 million Monarch Casino project that includes a new, 23-story, 500-room four-diamond hotel, boosting Black Hawk’s overnight capacity by 50 percent. The town is hoping that invigoration will help it change from a day-trip hamlet in the hills to a year-round destination where tourists can hike, bike and sample the products of local breweries.
Casino operators say the extra precautions to protect North Clear Creek, which still shows signs of pollution from turnof-the century mining operations, weren’t required but were the right thing to do.
“We’re blessed with a lot of natural beauty around the city of Black Hawk, and we want to keep it that way,” Monarch chief operating officer David Farahi said. “We feel like the Front Range is starved for more hotel rooms up here in Black Hawk. If you take gross gaming revenue and divide it by hotel rooms in any market in the whole world, Black Hawk is second only to Macau. So we’re very confident that if we build it they will come.”
The implosion, which went off without a hitch in about 10 seconds, was difficult because it happened in the middle of town — which sits in a narrow canyon — in between existing structures. A structural engineer overseeing the project likened it to “threading the needle.”
Once dust cleared after a succession of loud bangs, the parking garage was reduced to a heap of thousands of yards of concrete. More than 300 pounds of explosives were used to bring the building down, and it will be an additional six or so weeks before all of the rubble is taken away.
About 95 percent of the structure will be recycled, said Chris Formanek, senior project manager with Colorado Cleanup Corporation, which is handling the debris containment and removal.
“We’ve taken some extra steps to make sure we keep our neighbors happy, the city happy and ultimately (Monarch) happy,” he said. Formanek’s group also oversaw demolition in August 2015 of the old University of Colorado Hospital’s eight-story Biomedical Research building.
Simply tearing down the garage would have been extremely dangerous, those working on the project said. Any disruption to the building’s post-tensioned layout of high-strength internal cables would have compromised the whole structure. The implosion was a way to keep town visitors and nearby buildings safe.
Outside of the Monarch project, Black Hawk has also sketched plans for more than 12 miles of hike-and-bike singletrack. The town also envisions developing a 900acre-foot reservoir that could store water for additional casino and hotel development.
“People that came up to Black Hawk five or 10 years ago have this impression of what the town is. It’s really changed,” Farahi said. “It’s not only us. There are many other properties that have invested in their properties.”
And town officials hope Monarch’s project will be just another example of that change.
“It’s all driven, really, by these hotels,” said Black Hawk mayor David Spellman, whose family has lived in town for five generations. “Once this hotel is complete, it puts Black Hawk halfway to its goal of 3,000 hotel rooms. The implosion today is exciting, but truly what means the most is it makes way for the 500 rooms.”