Now you see it, now you don’t.
In about 8 seconds, a 17-story commercial building that stood for 42 years in Southfield was reduced to a massive pile of rubble surrounded by an enormous cloud of dust Sunday morning.
Hundreds of eager spectators photographed, filmed and cheered the orchestrated destruction like they were attending a Fourth of July fireworks display. Among the observers were Oxford residents Tom Bailey, Dan Clark, Bill Dunn and Jack Curtis.
‘There’s always a lot of hoopla when these buildings come down,? Bailey said. ‘Everybody likes to watch.?
The 340,000-square-foot North Park Plaza building near Nine Mile Rd., between Southfield and Greenfield roads, was imploded by the Lapeer-based North American Dismantling Corporation and the Maryland-based Controlled Demolition, Inc.
‘I think it went well,? said Clark, an asset recovery manager who’s worked for North American Dismantling for eight years. ‘I think everything fell right where it was supposed to. Everything was on time and the weather cooperated.?
‘Honestly, that was one the best (implosions) I’ve ever seen. It went like clockwork,? said Bailey, a Vietnam veteran who’s worked for North American Dismantling for 18 years. He’s a senior estimator and project manager.
‘It was an awesome sight,? said Curtis, who’s a trustee on the township board. ‘As it went down, it was perfection.?
Vacant since 2010, the North Park Plaza was purchased by Oakland Community College (OCC) through a bank foreclosure earlier this year. It cost the college $2.5 million including the demolition, according to Janet Roberts, OCC’s executive director of PR and Marketing.
The building had deteriorated to the point where school officials determined it could no longer be restored and had to be demolished.
OCC has no immediate plans for the property, which is approximately 11 acres.
To raise money for student scholarships, the OCC Foundation conducted an on-line auction for the opportunity to push the but ton to trigger the implosion.
Seventy-eight bids were submitted by 26 bidders, according to Roberts. The winning bid was $8,000. It was submitted by a donor who wished to remain anonymous.
After the auction deadline passed, two other parties each donated $2,000, bringing the total raised to $12,000, Roberts said.
Standing in for the winning bidder was Waterford resident Andrea Wilson, a recent graduate of OCC’s police academy. She brought the prominent building tumbling to the ground.
?(The winning bidder) wanted to have that honor go to someone in the emergency services programs,? Roberts said.
Bailey noted months of planning and lots of preparatory work went into imploding the building. For example, workers used torches to cut wedges in the steel support columns to weaken them. This is done so the building ‘falls in on itself correctly,? he said.
A total of 122 pounds of explosives was used to bring the building down. That included about 400 ‘linear shaped charges,? which finished cutting the columns, and about 150 ‘kicker charges,? which blew out the column sections between the cuts, according to Bailey and Clark.
Explosives were detonated on the ground, fourth and seven floors, Clark said. Gravity did the rest of the work by bringing the top 10 floors crashing down on top of them.
North American Dismantling is salvaging materials from the debris, such as steel, copper and concrete, with plans to sell them.
‘The majority of that building will be recycled,? Bailey said.
‘A lot of it we’ll prepare (on site) and it will go directly to the steel mills in Detroit,? Clark said. ‘Probably 80 pecent of the steel in this will go directly to the mill. It will end up in somebody’s automobile someday.?
The concrete will be crushed into usable aggregate for building roads and driveways.
‘Very little? of the building’s remains will end up in a landfill, according to Clark. ‘We’ve had jobs where between 95 and 98 percent of the materials were recycled.?
‘We’ll be done with the entire site by the end of January,? he noted.
Taking down a 17-story building is ‘a good-sized project,? said Bailey, ‘but it’s not considered one of the bigger ones we’ve done.?
For example, North American Dismantling demolished and removed 2.3 million square feet of buildings from a General Motors manufacturing facility in Anderson, Indiana.
In Berlin, New Hampshire, the company dismantled a paper pulp mill that consisted of 85 separate structures totaling 600,000 square feet, spread out over 120 acres.
Never missing an opportunity to promote the town, Curtis trumpeted the fact Oxford had such a strong presence at the implosion.
‘It was good to see a lot of people from Oxford working for North American Dismantling,? he said. ‘It shows we’ve got some highly-talented people around here.?

Representing Leonard’s Old Time Barber Shop in the dunk tank is Robin Rapson. She repeatedly got dunked during the annual Strawberry Festival. For more festival photos, please see pages 11, 13 and 28. Photo by C.J. Carnacchio.

It appears Oxford Twp. and Village will be paying less to Oakland County for sanitary sewage disposal, but the question is, will the projected savings be passed on to users via lower rates?
Officials have adopted a wait-and-see approach.
‘As long as everything comes together as the county’s projecting,? Treasurer Joe Ferrari said he could ‘definitely? see the township board reducing sewer rates at some point.
But the first couple of quarterly sewer bills from the county must be reviewed and compared to previous bills before any decisions are made, he noted.
‘We have to see how this is going to come together,? Ferrari said. ‘We have to make sure (the savings) they’ve projected is what actually happens.?
As of July 1, the county began billing communities for sewage disposal based on actual, metered flow as opposed to estimated usage.
All sewage in the township and village flows to Detroit for treatment. For this service, Detroit bills the county, the county then bills the communities and the communities in turn bill the individual users. Along the way, operating and maintenance costs are added on by the county and communities.
Billing based on actual flow is projected to lower the township’s annual sewage disposal cost from $737,848 to $610,597 ? a $127,251 (or 17.2 percent) reduction.
The village’s annual sewer cost is expected to drop from $279,209 to $256,116 ? a $23,093 (or 8.3 percent) reduction.
‘These are only estimates,? noted Tim Prince, chief engineer for the Oakland County Drain Commissioner’s Office. ‘If I was a community, I’d probably say I’ll keep the rates the same for this year and we’ll see what the numbers really end up being the following year. But it’s really up to the community to make that decision.?
Village Manager Joe Young isn’t anticipating a reduction in village sewer rates at this point. ‘Dollar-wise it sounds like a lot of money, but percentage-wise it’s very small,? he explained.
Young said other costs such as utility, fuel and labor provided by the Department of Public Works have to be factored in before any reductions could be considered.
‘You’ve got to look at your costs of doing business,? said the manager, noting the ‘final audit numbers,? which the village is awaiting, must also be reviewed and taken into consideration.
Always one to look at the bright side, Young noted, ‘The good news is at least we know it’s not going to go up.?
On the township side, Ferrari said ‘assuming it’s going to happen? the way the county is expecting, ‘we could definitely do some reduction for our residents.?
‘We’re very fortunate our sewer fund’s very healthy,? the treasurer noted. Ferrari said the township’s only interested in covering its costs, not making a profit.
Prince said basing the billing on metered flow as opposed to estimated usage is not only going to result in more accurate billing, it will also encourage communities to find and repair any areas in their sewer systems where ground water or storm water maybe leaking in.
‘Under the old method, there was no incentive for communities to dry that up because they weren’t being billed based on flow. They were being billed based on how many people tied into system,? he explained. ‘Now, there’s incentive to remove storm water or ground water if it’s getting into the sanitary system because it’s taking up capacity and costing them more money.?