Rehoboth City Hall comes down
After standing for more than 50 years, Rehoboth Beach City Hall is coming down.
Workers began taking the facility apart piece by piece Feb. 3.
City Manager Sharon Lynn said demolition is expected to take about 20 working days. Crews are demolishing and removing the wood-frame superstructure down to a suspended slab on the first floor, Lynn said.
After that, she said, the slab, metal decking and bar joists will come down, followed by the basement walls and slabs.
Metal from the building – about 45 tons – will be recycled.
Anyone hoping for the wrecking ball has been disappointed.
“The wrecking ball – despite being great fun to watch in action – is the worst tool to use to achieve separation of building materials and maximum recycling," Lynn said. "The wrecking ball creates a mangled mass of brick, wood, metal, and concrete which is impossible to separate. The excavator with grapple bucket is the proper piece of equipment to surgically separate the materials for maximum recycling.”
Mayor Sam Cooper said brick and concrete will be crushed and then recycled. He said these days. it's not acceptable to just haul everything off to a landfill.
The City Hall building dates to 1964. Cooper said when it was first built, the Rehoboth Beach Public Library occupied the east side of the building fronting Rehoboth Avenue. In 1985, city officials purchased the building across the street at 226 Rehoboth Ave. and leased it to the library. City Hall was then remodeled, Cooper said, with the police moving in to the library's old space.
Commissioner Kathy McGuiness said as a kid, she used to study in the old library. While that gives the building some sentimental value, she said, the building was at the end of its useful life.
Unlike McGuiness, Cooper was unsentimental about the building’s demise.
“I have spent more than 33 years sitting at the commissioners’ table, but I have been a bit surprised at how I have no real regret to see the building go. Some of it has to do with getting older. I find it takes more and more to get me excited the older I get. I get more excited to remember what we have been able to accomplish while sitting at that table than the physical surroundings," Cooper said.
"It is also exciting to think we will soon have a building that will better meet all user's needs,” he said.
Ryan Mavity covers Milton and the court system. He is married to Rachel Swick Mavity and has two kids, Alex and Jane. Ryan started with the Cape Gazette all the way back in February 2007, previously covering the City of Rehoboth Beach. A native of Easton, Md. and graduate of Towson University, Ryan enjoys watching the Baltimore Ravens, Washington Capitals and Baltimore Orioles in his spare time.
