Federal deconstruction underway at a warehouse at the U.S. Army’s Fort Carson in Fort Carson, Colo.

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More governments are deconstructing buildings and reusing building materials from obsolete structures as they update and upgrade their communities’ building stock. Many find that the practice saves money as well as resources.

Government-owned buildings are showing their age. A recent Energy Information Administration analysis calculates that 25,000 of the 635,000 government-owned buildings in the United States were constructed before 1920.

Several categories of public buildings offer deconstruction opportunities, says Thomas Napier, research architect at the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center, in Champaign, Ill. “In a governmental context,” Napier told GovPro.com, “deconstructing obsolete public housing could provide ‘green collar’ job opportunities. Any other wood-framed buildings, offices, institutional buildings and other similar structures could provide significant opportunities.”

Seattle is one city that has been deconstructing rather than demolishing government buildings, and it has been encouraging the practice among residents and businesses, too. "We are actively encouraging increased salvage of building materials and increased deconstruction, especially in the single-family areas," says Dick Lilly of Seattle Public Utilities, part of the Seattle city government.

Dirk Wassink, general manager of Seattle-based Second Use Building Materials, told GovPro.com, “We are currently working with the local government in Seattle on a project to recover building materials at city transfer stations. They have also sponsored some deconstruction efforts on government-owned properties.” Wassink’s firm salvages used but still usable construction materials and finds them new homes.

The public sector is key to supporting the widespread adoption of the practice, explains Wassink: “Since governments tend to be owners of large numbers of buildings, their decisions have a large impact on how construction (and deconstruction) gets done.”

Wassink outlines ways that deconstruction can compete with demolition on cost. “Some of the additional labor costs due to the more intensive dismantling process can be offset with the value of the recovered materials. Also, separated recycling streams tend to have lower tipping fees than mixed recycling and landfilling options, so some savings can be achieved there.”

Government agencies that want to salvage materials from old buildings must specify that in contracts. “A huge consideration, as I understand it, is how the demolition/deconstruction specification is written, so that contractors are required (or at least highly motivated) to prioritize reuse over recycling, and to recover as much as possible from the site,” Wassink says.

Napier agrees. “Standard contracting processes and technical specifications have been developed around conventional demolition practices,” he says. “Some adjustments may be required to solicitation and contract award practices.”

The Building Material Reuse Association (BMRA, www.bmra.org), based in Beaverton, Ore., is an educational and research organization whose mission is to facilitate building deconstruction and the reuse/recycling of recovered building materials. Its Web site includes an online directory of contractors and consultants, and a library of case studies and articles. It also offers training in deconstruction and organizes a conference every other year that many government agencies attend. “Government agencies are encouraged to join the BMRA. We currently have representatives from the EPA and the Empire State Council on Economic Development and other government agencies among our members,” says Anne Nicklin, a member of the BMRA’s board of directors and a sustainability consultant for San Francisco-based construction consulting firm Davis-Langdon.

For part one of GovPro.com’s report on building deconstruction in government, visit here.