Tillio Olcese, owner of Olcese Construction, pulls down the front of the Pacific Pawnbrokers building Monday. Now he and his co-workers will clear and repave the site in time for the July 4th Holiday.
What looks like a mechanical monster is really an excavator operated by Tillio Olcese. His company, Olcese Construction, started demolition of the old Pacific Pawnbrokers building Monday morning.
Built in the 1940s, the former location of Pacific Pawnbrokers lacked structural integrity, according to Tillio Olcese, whose construction company was responsible for the demolition.
“When we were taking it down, we saw how weak the building was,” Olcese said. “A good size earthquake could have knocked it over. Even the structural steel wasn’t bolted up well.”
While the building’s frame came down quickly,Olcese said construction workers will need to use some heavy machinery to finish the job. Specifically, they need to break apart the concrete vault that was once part of the building.
Olcese predicts that the demolition process won’t interfere with any downtown events like the weekly Sparks Hometowne Farmer’s Market.
“Materials like brick produce a lot of dust when they’re taken down,” Olcese said. “But we’re required to have water trucks spray the (demolition) site while we’re working to maintain air quality and we have the area fenced off.”
One of Olcese’s employees used an excavator to tear down the building, and by 9 a.m., only the building’s façade was still standing.
“The decision to demolish the building is consistent with the master plan for the redevelopment of Victorian Square,” city redevelopment manager Armando Ornelas said. “We’re still looking at moving forward with the construction of new roads. We will be going to (the Sparks City Council) in July to either affirm or change the direction of our redevelopment plans.”
“What demolishing the Pacific Pawnbrokers building will do is help us to assemble some critical parcels to make the concept of doing the redeveloping of the area possible,” said Councilwoman Julia Ratti, whose district includes Victorian Square. “The city isn’t a developer. The city does everything it can, though, to find a developer for the area and the more available parcels there are, the more appealing the area will be to a potential developer.”
Ratti said the city can assemble land and look for developers, but that predicting the timeline of when new buildings will be constructed is difficult to determine because it’s dependent on the state of the economy.
“Now, we’re trying to get all of our ducks in a row so that once the economy does turn around, we’re ready to go,” Ratti said.
As far as what will be done with the remains of the building, Olcese said that the metal will eventually end up in China, where it will be recycled and the rest of the brick and debris will be “landfilled.”
For now, the site of the pawn shop will be paved over to make room for more parking. Olcese and his three employees on the job said they should be finished with the entire project by July 4.
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