Langlade Hospital Demolition Begins

The original buildings in the Langlade Hospital complex started tumbling down Tuesday afternoon.

A Green Bay firm, in conjunction with a local trucking and excavation company, will be working on removing the collection of buildings that made up the hospital starting in the late 1920s.

Dave Schneider, the hospital’s CEO and administrator, said this morning that the project to remove the buildings has been underway since the day the older complex shut down and operations moved to the new site only a few dozen yards away.

Asbestos needed to be safely removed and disposed of, then more physical salvage operations got underway saving items that could be sold and recycled.

Schneider said that the first crash of the backhoe Tuesday started a complex two-month process that will include sorting of items that can be recycled. The rubble will be trucked off-site and there will be more recycling and bricks and concrete will be pulverized for fill.

“That will be used as a base for the parking lots,” Schneider said.

The lower buildings and those on the east side will be the first to come down using the backhoes, and then a crane with a ball will be brought in to handle the three and four-story sections.

The contractor is working from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 7 a.m. to noon on Friday. Schneider said a meeting was held with neighbors before the demolition work started.

Schneider added that when all of the mechanicals and structures are removed underground work will be launched including construction of a pneumatic delivery tunnel for data from St. Joseph Hospital Center and the Gerald and Dorothy Volm Cancer Center.

He said removal of the building will allow completion of the new hospital, which is expected in the middle of October.

He stressed that work on the hospital campus won’t end then. General Clinic is planning an addition to its complex and won’t be completed until July, 2013.