How a New Plymouth eyesore is being demolished, bit by bit

With six storeys, state highways either side, and bird poo that flows over your boots, taking down New Plymouth’s Education House is no easy feat.

For years the building has sat on the corner of Eliot and Courtenay streets like a pimple on the face of the city, and many welcomed news when local iwi Te Ātiawa announced they were demolishing the earthquake-prone eyesore.

Deconstruction started from the top down – first was the removal of a large white box from the top which was nicknamed “the birds’ nest” by the team from Nikau Contractors, owing to the near-knee-deep puddle of bird poo on the floor.

About four tonnes of guano was removed, bagged and taken to Hampton Downs where it was given similar treatment to asbestos.

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From there the “soft demolition” began – a crew of about 12 used tools such as speciality crowbars and chainsaws to remove wood, carpet, stairs, plumbing and fittings.

Anything that was still valuable, from coat hooks to toilets, has been sent to building recyclers where they’re sold onto the second-hand market.

The soft demolition phase also cleared the concrete sections which after being removed are split into concrete and steel – the steel is recycled, while the concrete is ground up and used as hardfill or roading, Nikau Group Taranaki regional manager Duncan English says.

“It’s the best because it’s got concrete dust in it so when water passes through it firms up.”

English says they’re super-focused on keeping things out of the landfill.

Once the “birds’ nest”, stairs and roof have been removed the crew will attach the large crane to sections of concrete, holding them in place, while they’re cut into pieces then lowered to the ground.

All kinds of James Bond-sounding gadgets are used, including a wire saw with diamond rope and a remote control digger.

Once the site has been cut down to three storeys a digger will be used to break down the remaining levels, working in tandem with a large wire and plastic cage suspended from the crane to keep debris from falling away from the site.

Given the right weather, the hard demolition will only take a week and requires about four staff, rather than the 12 on site at the moment.

Nikau Contractors operations manager Wi Harrison says that in many ways a building such as this is just as hard to take apart as it was to build – if not harder.

But his team relishes the challenge.

“The unique thing about it is you’re not doing the same thing every day, and it gives you room for growth.

“We get a lot of boys, they’ll be started with a broom, and now they’re driving these machines and that gives them opportunities.”

Nikau Contractors is Māori-owned, and whānau-focused.

Members of the team will help out during university breaks, but often they enjoy demolition so much they don’t want to go back, Harrison said.

“We’ve got a PT trainer, one time we had a school teacher, and we had a helicopter engineer that wanted to just carry on.”

While it does annoy him Harrison said he got his start at the company in much the same way, at the age of 17 he was on his way to join a rodeo when his car broke down.

“My sister who owns the company rung up to help me and I had no money to pay for her help, so she said come work for me for a couple of months and I did – I was 17, and I’m 52 now.”

Harrison said they get plenty of interest from the public in any demolitions they do – including many “professionals” who have never undertaken a demolition before.

“They look at it and they say, why didn’t you just blow it up?

“The networking to do it all is so complex that it’s easier just to pull it down, if you could blow it up, we’d do it!”

Nikau isn’t the only business whose mahi is contributing to the project.

Leading Taranaki director Chantelle Ngaia has been providing traffic management for the project 24 hours a day.

“With Te Kotahitanga o Te Ātiawa backing us on a lot of work it’s been really good, and the support of the local community as well,” she said.

“We’re the ones facing the public, so we get plenty of questions about what’s going on.”

Egmont Dixon senior project manager Derek Stevens said that the project would be finished about mid-November provided the weather plays ball.

From there the site will be swept clean, with Te Kotahitanga o Te Ātiawa currently looking at a number of development options.