Under a sky ashy from Californias wildfires, demolition of the L.A. County Museum of Arts Ahmanson building has continued. The Ahmanson is the last structure of the four being torn down to make way for a new Peter Zumthor-designed building.

Demolition of the Ahmanson is expected to be completed in October, museum representative Jessica Youn said, adding that the project has not been delayed by air quality issues due to the fires. Beyond COVID-19 safety precautions, additional measures were taken to protect Clark Construction workers from wildfire smoke, including providing them with N95 masks.

Meantime, preparation has begun to lay the foundation for the new building, and excavation of the Spaulding parking lot across Wilshire Boulevard is still underway. That is where a 300-seat theater and cafe will rise.

The Leo S. Bing Center as well as the Hammer and Art of the Americas buildings have been completely removed, including their foundations.

The remainder of LACMAs Ahmanson building.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Demolition of the Ahmanson building at LACMA.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The $750-million building project has sparked criticism over its design, as well as its square footage and cost. The project is still on schedule, Youn said, with completion planned for the end of 2023.

On Thursday, 17 months after county supervisors released $117.5 million of public funds for the $750 million (originally $650 million) project, LACMA released a floor plan of the future museum for the first time.

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LACMA demolition is nearly complete. Here are the latest photos - Los Angeles Times

WKBN First News received messages that some people are unhappy with the decision; the Western Reserve Port Authorly explains it

by: Brandon Jaces

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) A new Dunkin is coming to the corner of Market Street and Midlothian Boulevard. Some people loathe the loss of a historic building, but John Moliterno, executive director of the Western Reserve Port Authority, said they tried to find a tenant but werent able to, so they did the next best thing.

What we did was we had numerous conversations with other businesses and non-profits, showed the building numerous times to entities throughout the Valley to try and encourage them to take this building, he said.

After two years, no one bit. Moliterno said after seeing the inside of the building, many people realized it would take a lot of money to renovate the property.

We offered to give the building, he said. We were trying to give the building to an entity to move in there, but it was simply too much money for all the people we showed it to.

Moliterno said its an old bank building they acquired from Chemical Bank, who moved. He said its a great location and thinks what they are talking about doing with the property will fit in well with the community.

That was an area that didnt have a coffee shop, he said and so we thought this would fit because it would help that general area get something it doesnt have right now.

It wasnt as if local officials just decided to take a building and demolish it. They spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to clean up the property and looked into what they could do to support the area that sits at the entrance to Boardman and Youngstown.

What we did was we arrived at the fact that we needed to demoltion the building, which is going to be done, Moliterno said.

A local man who lived down the street from the building when he was younger doesnt want to see it go.

Its been here since 1957, said Thomas Sheehan. Its very unique architecture was made to look like a cruise ship, and it has a lot of history, and I just hate to see everything being torn down in this town.

The job of the port authority is to help the economy and bring jobs to the area. Dunkin alone would bring over 50, Moliterno said.

Sheehan said he would like to see a business make use of the existing building. He thinks the introduction of new business at the site is positive but doesnt think a Dunkin is necessary, and he even admitted he drinks a lot of Dunkin. .

Theres a vacant lot across the street. I just dont see why this has to be done, he said. They could preserve a unique part of the Valley.

A renovation into a restaurant or shops would be what Sheehan would like to see.

It has two stories, he said. I think they could do a lot with it.

Moliterno said they gave it their best shot to give the building away. The demolition will happen in a couple of weeks.

The second franchise that will occupy the building with Dunkin has yet to be locked down.

The last thing we wanted to do was to just tear a building down that we would have another use for, he said. We simply found a case where we couldnt find someone that would be a fit and because of the amount of money it was going to take to really get it into working condition.

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Some disheartened with demolition of cruise ship bank in Youngstown - WKBN.com

KWTX has published a video of the demolition of the exterior of the American Bank in Bellmead, Texas, also known as the Round Bank.

The bank stands along Interstate 35 in Central Texas. It was designed by then Dallas-based architect Durwood Pickle and was completed in 1979.

The exterior of the building is being demolished because the owner, American Bank, claims that it would be too expensive to rehabilitate the existing building for contemporary use. The exterior will be replaced by a new design, and the new building is scheduled to open next year.

The round building sits on a single-story landscape plinth. The buildings multistory drum-shaped mass doesnt have any visible windows and is crowned by supersize letters spelling out the banks name. Pictures published last year show the building relatively well preserved with retro signage by the buildings entrance and a few topiaries punctuating the buildings base.

The video from KWTX shows machinery removing the buildings facade and distinctive signage.

Preservation Texas reports on its website that the building was designed to be a landmark and was made tall enough that travelers on the nearby interstate could not see down onto its roof. The group also says that the buildings facade is made of 25-foot-tall lightweight fiberglass-reinforced concrete panels.

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Demolition begins on Bellmead, Texas's Round Bank - The Architect's Newspaper

Its been over six months since the Electric Umbrella permanently closed at EPCOT, but some elements of the quick-service restaurant were still recognizable in the construction zone behind Spaceship Earth. For a while, we could still see pieces of the iconic awning that used to shade the front of the restaurant, but now it is gone for good.

The umbrella-like awning used to stretch out from the brown portion of the roof.

Inside, a few umbrellas on the ceiling are still visible, but demolition has begun as you can see by the absence of windows and some walls.

The windows have been completely blown out. This segment of the building that juts out is set to be completely demolished.

This area will eventually be home to EPCOTs new Starbucks location and a different quick-service restaurant. This will use the whole building, so the temporary MouseGear location will need to close at some point to facilitate this.

Hey, can I have an umbrella if youre just going to demolish them???

Do you miss the Electric Umbrella? Let us know in the comments.

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BREAKING: Canopy Removed and Demolition Begins On Former Electric Umbrella at EPCOT in Preparation for New Starbucks and Counter Service Restaurant -...

Upstairs, bedrooms radiate under the eaves from a large central hall, each room interconnected with closets. One bedroom was converted to a bathroom.

The house also features a hidden room, just three feet wide and six feet long. Inside the room, the couple found a packet of love letters, tied with a tattered pink ribbon, dating from 1887 to 1891.

The origin of these letters is unknown, the application reads. According to the names on the letters, they do not appear to have been written or received by anyone known to have lived in the house.

The love letters predate the house. Theres no access to the hidden room except for a ceiling panel in a closet.

It was definitely somebody special place, Jo Anne said. It was obviously somebody having an affair.

The farm also has changed in the almost 30 years the Millers have owned it.

When they closed on the farm, Jo Anne and Jay talked about what they wanted to do with the land. Jay suggested raising cattle, but Jo Anne didnt want to raise a cow only to find it on her dinner plate. Before long, they began taking in abused and neglected horses and nursing them back to health.

Jo Anne has an education background and soon began using these horses in a therapeutic riding program to help teenagers deal with their own traumas. The farm has helped 504 horses recover from malnutrition, abuse and neglect, while pairing them with teens that may have similar difficulties in life. All of the students who have gone through Brook Hill Farms programs have graduated high school and many have gone on to receive college degrees.

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Unique Bedford County farm house saved from demolition - Lynchburg News and Advance

ANN ARBOR, MI Demolition work has begun to make way for the next high-rise development in downtown Ann Arbor.

Crews have been busy since last week tearing down a 1980s office building that housed DTE Energy at the southeast corner of Main and William streets.

Rising in its place over the next two years will be a 10-story building with apartments and ground-floor retail.

The Standard, as the development is called, was approved by City Council in early March just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. But the novel coronavirus outbreak isnt stopping the project from moving ahead.

Well move forward with foundation work as soon as demolition is complete, and we expect to start going vertical early next year, said Eric Leath, development manager with Georgia-based developer Landmark Properties.

We look forward to welcoming residents to The Standard in fall 2022, he added.

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10-story development planned for corner of Main and William

The apartments are designed primarily for young professionals, University of Michigan students, faculty and visiting professors, according to plans.

There are no notable changes to the building since it was approved, said architect John Myefski.

Plans call for 218 apartments with 421 bedrooms and over 6,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.

Amenities include fitness/yoga rooms, study areas, a small outdoor deck/lounge on the east side of the second floor, and a larger outdoor deck with a hot tub/pool on the west side of the second floor overlooking Main Street.

Ann Arbor high-rise proposal features pool deck with hammocks

The unit mix includes 89 studios, 22 one-bedroom units (two dedicated as affordable housing for people earning 80% of the area median income), 60 two-bedroom units, 12 three-bedroom units and 35 four-bedroom units.

The developer agreed to include at least 1,250 square feet of rooftop solar panels, estimated to meet over 1% of the buildings annual energy needs and public art features.

The demolition of a 1980s office building to make way for a new high-rise at Main and William streets in downtown Ann Arbor on Sept. 11, 2020.Ryan Stanton | The Ann Arbor News

Adhering to the citys height limits for the property, the block-long building will step down from 10 stories to five stories as it approaches Packard Street.

The buildings facade is to include a combination of brick, steel panels and glass.

There are 102 car parking spaces planned, including 90 interior spaces and 12 exterior spaces on the east side.

Plans include one underground parking level and one first-floor parking level in the building with access via the adjacent alley. Four spaces are to be for electric vehicles and two for car sharing, plus 84 bicycle parking spaces.

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5-story hotel proposed on west edge of downtown Ann Arbor

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52-unit Liberty Townhomes development gets unanimous OK in Ann Arbor

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Demolition work making way for another apartment high-rise in downtown Ann Arbor - MLive.com

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.(KRQE) Squalid conditions inside a now vacant, former Albuquerque restaurant are causing problems for a neighboring non-profit. In response, the city is now considering tearing down the problem property along Central Avenue.

Just west of Wyoming Boulevard, the property at 8411 Central Avenue NE has been on the Albuquerque Code Enforcement divisions radar since 2014. While the location remains boarded up, the neighboring non-profit Street Safe New Mexico says it continues to deal with issues coming from the next-door property it shares a wall with.

The non-profits Executive Director, Christine Barber recorded video of a recent indoor tour of the property. Barbers video shows the vacant business has large piles of trash inside. Barber describes the overwhelming smells of feces and rotting trash.

That smell, Barber said. Holy crap, no wonder everyone thinks someones dead in here.

Barbers next-door non-profit has been dealing with the mouse problem since May. The mice were determined to be coming from the vacant building next door. Barber estimates the non-profit has killed around 120 mice in the last four months. She says the rodents are getting into health supplies that the non-profit provides to women living on the street.

We have so much damage thats been done to our building, Barber said. Theres Tom and Jerry mouse holes in all of the walls, they are coming from next door, they have to be coming from the abandoned building next door.

Photos gathered by the city show inspectors recently found piles of trash, bloody needles and signs of homeless camps around the property.

Monday night, city councilors voted to move forward with a demolition of the old restaurant but councilors did not vote to expedite the process so the soonest it could happen in mid-November. Street Safe says thats not soon enough for them to stay in the building safely in the meantime, so for the moment, they will not operate out of that space.

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City eyeing demolition of vacant, mouse-infested Central Ave. business - KRQE News 13

This is a view of Ormond Beach.(Photo: STAR FILE PHOTO)

With new energy contracts secured for Oxnard's Ormond Beach Generating Station, the plan to end the power plant has begun.

Starting next year, GenOn, which owns two coastal power plants in the city, will begin setting aside monthly payments to a trust that will eventually pay for the demolition of the gas-fired plant at Ormond Beach. The trust will be established through theVentura County Community Foundation.

It remains to be seen what will become of the Mandalay Generating Station, which unlike the one at Ormond, is no longer operating and can't generate any revenue. Developing the site could be a possibility to generate money for demolition.

In the meantime, the Ormond facility will continue operations through 2023, years beyond the original decommission date at the end of this year.

The City Council on Tuesday was briefed on the latest developments, which included the State Water Resources ControlBoardvotingunanimously on Sept. 1to extend the life of the power plant.

Depending on future energy contracts and electric grid needs, the Ormond Beach power plant could come down some time between 2025 to 2027.

News: Fisherman's Wharf project derailed with Coastal Commission defeat

"Im really glad that we, unlike other communities, are going to have a fund to take this down," said Councilwoman Carmen Ramirez.

Ramirez has been a staunch advocate of ridding industrial uses along the coast. But she, along with others on the council, spoke on behalf of the city urging the state board to approve the power plant extension.

This December was supposed to be the deadline for the two Oxnard power plants and others in the state that useocean water to cool down heated operations to decommission. But the state agency is extendingthe deadline for Ormond and three others in Southern California to ensure power grid reliability and to give more time for alternative energy sources to get on line.

City Manager Alex Nguyen and City Attorney Stephen Fischer negotiated a deal for GenOn to set aside $25 million for demolition of the power plant and remediation of the soil and groundwater at the site. According to the pact, if the funds set aside are not enough fordemolition, GenOn agrees to pay the difference.

Election 2020: Ventura County candidates gear up for online forums; first set for Monday

"Had we not done this and assumed they were going to close at the end ofthis year, we would have been the biggest losers," Nguyen said.

That's because state leaders might have approved an extension due to grid reliability and there wouldn't have been a payment plan to take the facility down. Other decommissioned power plants in the state, like the one in Morro Bay, have such a fate.

A similar deal wasn't reached before the closure of Mandalay power plant, which is just north of Ormond Beach near Fifth Street. In an interview on Thursday, Nguyen said that site requires development in order to generaterevenue for demolition.

"I was working on a deal there most of last year. The recession put a massive halt on it," Nguyen said. "Theres still a deal to be made there, and I intend to pick it up as soon as feasible."

Previous: Ormond Beach approved for continued operations; plan for demolition in the works

Wendy Leung is a staff writer for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at wendy.leung@vcstar.com or 805-437-0339. You can also find her on Twitter @Leung__Wendy.

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Ormond Beach power plant in Oxnard to come down in five to seven years; Mandalay uncertain - VC Star

Start with a $500 car. Cheaper is fine, but no higher. Then decorate it outrageously. Maybe with a giant rubber ducky, or a flying pig. Now put it on a racetrack with scores of other half-broken art-cars and drive it fast as hell for 14 and a half hours.

Thats the formula for 24 Hours of Lemons, a grass-roots race-carnival held since 2006. Whats the grand prize for completing the most laps? A rusted trophy. Sometimes, you get a big bag of nickels.

Jay Lamm, the ringleader of this circus, hatched the idea during a weekly lunch with car buddies at a Chinese restaurant in Berkeley, Calif. Nearly 15 years later, Lemons is a multimillion-dollar franchise held in dozens of cities across the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

Its a real race, but winning is mostly irrelevant. What is actually tested (and celebrated) is the ability of resourceful hobbyists armed with only basic tools and their wits to revive a worn-out vehicle for a weekend of low-rent, high-speed high jinks.

In arguably his most masterful act of provocation so far, a year ago Mr. Lamm changed the sacrosanct laws of Lemons. He put up $50,000 to create a prize for the first pure electric car to win any 24 Hours of Lemons race. To up the ante, electric cars are exempt from the $500 limit. (For all cars, that $500 mark does not include safety gear.)

Mr. Lamm said the electric vehicle prize would be paid exclusively in nickels, delivered to the winners driveway by a dump trunk.

Of the approximately 15,000 cars in Lemons races since 2006, only two have been electric. A converted half-century-old Datsun 1600, equipped with a 23-horsepower forklift powertrain, was quickly pulled from the race. It was too slow and a hazard for the rest of the field, which averages 55 to 60 miles an hour during a race.

A second team fielded a 1981 Plymouth Horizon TC3 wired to golf-cart batteries. Battery chargers previously used for Chinese crop-dusting drones were stationed in the teams pit area. Errant electrical fields attracted an army of fire ants, which swarmed the lining of the drivers race suit right before he put it on.

Ants are biting the drivers gonads, and he stays on the track anyway, Mr. Lamm said. Thats what I call dedication. Or a personality disorder. Or maybe both.

What led Mr. Lamm to stage a battle between E.V.s and gas cars in the worlds least prestigious racing series? Nothing other than the very survival of his tribe of wrench-turning weekend racers.

Mr. Lamm sees the writing on the wall for internal combustion and believes that hands-on enthusiasts need to embrace the potential of motors, batteries and inverters as a new form of automotive self-reliance. Were currently on the path to being marginalized wackos with a crazy hobby, he said.

Endurance car races are won not on pure speed but on stamina. You cant be off the track for more than 60 to 120 seconds, refueling or recharging as the case may be, Mr. Lamm said. You mathematically arent going to win.

Todays E.V. batteries go for 200 miles or more, about five times the distance needed for a typical American commute. But when accelerated to racing speeds followed by hard braking, again and again, those battery packs last perhaps a single hour. Gas cars can tank up in seconds and return to the track for another couple of hours. But recharging an E.V. commonly takes minutes or hours.

The only solution to winning Lemons in an E.V. is to engineer a battery-swapping apparatus and show up to race with a truckload of spare batteries. The approximate cost for the required set of five or so battery packs could easily exceed $100,000, twice the purse.

Besides, battery-swapping for electric cars is an unproven technology. Nio, a Chinese car company, is trying to build a battery-swap network in China. Its doing so with a $1.4 billion investment from the municipal government of Hefei, the largest city in Anhui Province. Better Place, an Israeli start-up, raised roughly $800 million for battery-swapping infrastructure before going bankrupt in 2013. Tesla tried battery swaps but gave up. Could the low-budget Lemon racers succeed where giant companies failed?

Its doubtful. Mr. Lamm announced the $50,000 Lemons E.V. prize a year ago. Since then, no one has tried to win in a pure electric vehicle. Maybe his mountain of nickels is safe.

Then again, theres Michael Bream, a two-time Lemons winner with gas cars. In his first victory, in 2010, Mr. Breams 1989 BMW 3-Series beat 100 other cars at Buttonwillow Raceway in Bakersfield, where Southern Californias gutsiest speed-shop mechanics compete.

After a second Lemons victory, this time at Sonoma Raceway in 2011, he was ready for a higher challenge. I dont know where my brain got the idea, but it hit me, he said. Lets try to do an electric Pikes Peak car.

The annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, held since 1916, follows a steep, tortuous route with 156 turns often through blinding weather to a 14,115-foot summit. In 2012, Mr. Bream entered his 1995 BMW M5, with the original straight-six engine replaced by an electric motor granting 900 pound-feet of torque.

On his inaugural run, the electrified Bimmer stunned the high-octane Pikes Peak crowd when it completed the 12.4-mile ascent in less than 12 minutes. On that day, Mr. Bream beat Nobuhiro Tajima, the hill climb racer known as Monster.

As soon as we crossed the line, it was confirmed, Mr. Bream said. We tapped into the great equalizer with this electric stuff. All of a sudden, it was Lemons on a world platform.

Four years later, he gave up his day job, selling Gravity Skateboards, the company he founded and ran for 23 years. I needed all my attention on the E.V. business, he said.

That business, EV West, is a hideaway Wonka-like workshop on the edge of a nondescript industrial park in San Marcos, Calif., 35 miles up the coast from San Diego. Its where iconic muscle cars and European classics go to become all-electric beasts. On any given day, the companys sunbaked parking lot might hold a converted 1954 Volkswagen Beetle waiting for Ewan McGregor, Tony Hawks electrified 1964 Corvette, or a classic VW bus prepped for Zach Galifianakis.

When I spoke with Mr. Bream in July, his team was frantically moving between celebrity conversions, selling D.I.Y. electric components and building a ground-up, all-electric salt-flat racecar in the vintage 1940s belly-tank style. A month later, Mr. Bream took that vehicle, the Electraliner, to the Bonneville Speed Week 2020 and its famed salt-caked racing bed. It took eight runs, but his team left a grueling week in Utah with a land speed record of 229.363 m.p.h. for the class of electric vehicles weighing about 2,000 pounds.

Winning Lemons with an E.V. will be more difficult. It will require an ultra-durable endurance car and an apparatus capable of speedy battery swaps. Blueprints dont exist.

There are other potential electric Lemons contenders. Jason Appelbaum is the founder and chief executive of EverCharge, a Bay Area company that installs E.V. charging equipment for multifamily dwellings and fleets.

A pack swap is not easy. Its a very serious engineering problem, he said. His team is working on it. Were not close, he acknowledged. Mr. Appelbaum is also a Lemons laureate, taking honors in 2018 with his gas-powered 1987 BMW 325 with Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy livery. (The answer painted on the cars hood: 42, of course.)

And theres Richard Hilleman, who ran the megahit John Madden Football franchise for four years starting in 1991. He worked on more than 100 video games, including racing titles, for almost 35 years at Electronic Arts before joining Amazon Game Studio in 2016. He also leads the seven-time champion Rattlesnake Electric Sports team, which has spent 20 years racing F.I.A. Category V electric karts that can hit speeds of 135 miles an hour.

Mr. Hilleman won a Lemons event in 2017 in a 10-year-old Prius hybrid. There is no enjoyment in life greater than passing a Mustang on the outside of the carousel at Sears Point in a Prius, he said.

Mr. Hilleman, who converted a Porsche 550 Spyder in the mid-1990s, warns teams against building homegrown, high-voltage battery packs. Rules for the Lemons E.V. prize, which he helped set, are safety measures that can be quickly understood and reliably implemented when lives are literally at stake. To repeat: A mishandled Lemons electric challenger could kill somebody.

Mr. Bream, the front-runner, hints at a run in fall 2021. We are on a mission, he said, launching into a passionate monologue about zero-emission motor sports.

But first hell have to go up against a field of fiercely competitive and highly skilled amateur racers. Their $500 cars might look ready for the junkyard, but that belies the meaning their mechanic drivers place in those vehicles and in internal combustion as a way of life.

I think its underestimated how gnarly that Lemons scene is, Mr. Bream said. If somebody wins that race in an electric car, it will change a lot of people.

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Endurance Racing With Cars That Belong in a Demolition Derby - The New York Times

JUNEAU A group that wants to save a neglected site where the Alaska territorial flag was designed, sewn and first flown sued Wednesday, seeking to block the city of Seward from demolishing the Jesse Lee Home.

The group, Friends of Jesse Lee Home, contends the property is theirs and say the city has misrepresented the homes condition and estimated renovation costs and interfered with work efforts.

Will Earnhart, an attorney in private practice who previously represented the city, by email said that to his knowledge, ownership had reverted to the city because conditions in the deed were not met. City manager Scott Meszaros declined comment Wednesday.

The Seward City Council in July voted to raze remaining buildings at the property, a one-time Methodist-run facility where orphans and other displaced children from Alaska Native villages were sent, many after the flu epidemic of a century ago.

Benny Benson, the homes most famous resident, is believed to be the only Indigenous person to design a state flag. He won a territory-wide contest in 1927 with his flag design. The design became the Alaska state flag after statehood in 1959.

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Group seeks to stop demolition of Seward's Jesse Lee Home, where the first Alaska flag flew - Anchorage Daily News