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.

The bad news is assessed residential property values are continuing to decline. The good news is, as a result, property taxes for 2010 will decrease as well.
‘Probably 80 to 85 percent of the people will see their actual taxes go down this year,? said Dave Hieber, manager of the Oakland County Equalization Division.
According to the county, the state equalized value (or assessed value) of residential properties in Oxford Township decreased by an average of 14.33 percent, while in neighboring Addison Township they fell by 15.45 percent on average.
State equalized value (SEV) is equal to 50 percent of a property’s fair market value.
As always, Hieber noted the averages reported here are for the entire community, not individual properties.
‘Obviously, it’s different neighborhood by neighborhood,? he said. ‘Some went down more than others. Some were less than the average (drop).?
Property owners will find out how much their SEV decreased for 2010 when they receive their new assessment notices in February.
Countywide, residential SEVs dropped by an average of 15.5 percent with the largest decrease in Southfield (28.31 percent) and the smallest in Bloomfield Hills (7.78 percent).
‘Oxford and Addison are both fairly average for the county,? Hieber said.
The new SEVs are based on home sales that took place between Oct. 1, 2008 and Sept. 30, 2009.
‘We look at the assessments at the time of the sale,? Hieber explained. ‘We adjust the assessments either up or down based on the market conditions.?
Based on sale prices during the 2008-09 time frame, the properties that sold were over-assessed and had to be reduced to 50 percent of the fair market value, which is what the SEV is supposed to be, he said.
‘There’s been an increase in the number of homes that have been sold, but there’s still a decrease in price,? Hieber noted.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any end in sight when it comes to falling property values.
‘I don’t think we’ve bottomed out,? Hieber said. ‘The reason I say that is the 2011 values will be based on sales from Oct. 1, 2009 through September 30, 2010. Already, looking at sales from Oct. 1 through the present, we’re still seeing property values decreasing. Hopefully, not at the same rate of 15 percent a year, but it’s too early to really call. We’re expecting further reductions in 2011, if everything continues on the same trend.?
The good news in all of this is the continued drop in SEV means taxpayers will see their local summer and winter property tax bills go down this year.
‘We’re expecting a decrease in taxable value in Oxford of around 12 percent,? Hieber said.
In Addison, the overall taxable value is expected to decline by 11 to 11.25 percent.
Hieber noted those are only estimates and could change depending on the decisions made by the local Board of Review, which meets in March.
When multiplied by local millage rates, a property’s taxable value is the basis for how much is paid in property taxes.
Hieber said the ‘significant? tax reductions this year will be for those properties in which the SEV and taxable value are the same or very close.
The exceptions are properties that were sold after having their taxable values capped for a long time or properties that have undergone new construction.
‘Other than that, everybody else will see a reduction in taxes,? Hieber said.
Declining SEVs aside, most everyone will experience a property tax decrease this year because the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is negative 0.3 percent, according to Hieber.
Because of Proposal A, approved by state voters in 1994, increases to a property’s taxable value are limited to the rate of inflation (as measured by the CPI) or 5 percent, whichever is less.
Hence, having a negative CPI means taxable values will decrease accordingly.
Residents who live in communities in which the county does the township’s assessing, like Oxford, won’t have to worry about calculating how much their tax bills will go down. It’s already being done for them.
‘We’re going to have an estimate of the tax change in dollars right on the (assessment) notice based on last year’s millage rate,? Hieber said. ‘We thought that would be helpful.?
Hieber noted the calculated tax decrease is assuming there are no tax increases or new millages. ‘We’re assuming the tax rates are the same,? he said.
Addison residents won’t see this tax calculation on their assessment notices because the township does its own assessing.