MWH Development Sets a Laudable Standard
By
Ted Reiff
Our usual deconstruction project is a single family residence that the homeowners want to replace with a newer, more functional and typically larger house. However, two weeks ago our Southern California region started the deconstruction of 10 single-family residences and one duplex for a local developer. MWH Development of Woodland Hills purchased two properties -- one parcel in North Hollywood containing seven houses dating from the 1920s to the 1980s, and another parcel in Tuluca Lake with three single-family dwellings and one duplex built in the 1950s. All structures on the properties had to be removed to make room for higher density housing. The North Hollywood property is on the corner of La Maida Street and Bellflower Avenue, and the other is on the corner of Cahuenga Boulevard and Bloomfield Street.
 Mark Handel, President of MWH, was sensitive to the desire of both communities to see something better done with the materials from these projects than simply clogging up local landfills. Of course, MWH will benefit from the tax deductible donation receipt they will receive from TRP, but it still would have been easier and less time consuming for Mark to have simply bulldozed the buildings.
Mark first called the Los Angeles affiliate of Habitat for Humanity -- they in turn referred him to The ReUse People. Southern California Regional Manager Lorenz Schilling and Area Manager Arthur Renaud immediately stepped up to assist MWH by putting the developer in touch with some TRP-certified deconstruction contractors. American Wrecking of South El Monte won the deconstruction bid for the Tuluca Lake project and Greenleaf Engineering Contractors of Huntington Beach won the North Hollywood contract.
Actual deconstruction began in mid-April and will be completed in May. The North Hollywood project contained 11,700 square feet of housing and the other contained 6,737 square feet. Garages on both sites contributed additional materials. In addition to three moving vans full of salvaged doors, cabinets, windows, lighting and plumbing fixtures, the TRP-certified deconstruction contractors saved over 10,000 square feet of hardwood flooring, 12 pallets of old mission-style roof tiles, and six tractor-trailer loads of lumber each weighing approximately 20 tons, for a total of 120 tons of lumber.
This project was such a success for the developer, the local communities, TRP and its certified deconstruction contractors that television crews from KCBS-2/KCAL-9 and KCET-6 filmed a portion of deconstruction and interviewed the parties. The films were aired the week of May 1 and May 8.
Mark Handel and MWH Development have set the bar for other local and regional in-fill developers. Our congratulations to him and his organization and a special thanks to the Los Angeles affiliate of Habitat for Humanity for the referral.
I would like to encourage all other in-fill developers to contact TRP for more information on the benefits of deconstruction and building-materials salvage. I would especially encourage them to call us prior to actually acquiring the property to take advantage of the potential benefits to themselves and the sellers of the property, which include tax incentives, positive publicity and lower development costs.
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