ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 25, 1996 TAG: 9602270014
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: G-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
ALAN Amos stood in the back yard of a Patton Avenue house with a disregard for the bitterly cold February wind that comes from a lifetime of working outdoors.
Amos watched his son, Mark, tear into the second-story of a vacant wood-frame house, using a 2 1/2-ton grapple on the hydraulic arm of a Case excavating machine.
The steel jaw spit out bites of lumber, plaster and window glass until the house collapsed into itself. Its crumbling sound was masked by the diesel roar of the 32-ton machine.
The house, in Roanoke's historic Gainsboro neighborhood, was about 100 years old, Amos estimated. It and one next to it were taken down this month to make way for the Second Street bridge- and street-improvement project.
Branch Highways Inc. of Roanoke had subcontracted with the Amos company to tear down the houses.
Alan L Amos Inc., based on 11th Street Northeast, has undertaken many high-profile demolition projects in the Roanoke Valley over the past three decades.
Among them were the the Hunter Viaduct, a downtown bridge removed to make way for the First Union Tower; the Jefferson Apartments, a 36-unit apartment building on Jefferson Street; a Singer Furniture Co. factory destroyed by fire in 1985; Total Action Against Poverty's offices on Shenandoah Avenue, gutted by fire in late 1989; and the American Theater, a movie house at Jefferson and Kirk Avenue.
Two years ago, Amos took down the Salem Avenue side of the Hotel Earle on the City Market. That building, like many Amos has been hired to demolish, had been damaged by fire.
A crowd gathered to watch a steel battering ram on a crane punch away at the hotel's top story. People often like to watch his crews work, Amos said. He believes a fascination with powerful machinery draws them.
In the spring of 1968, Amos worked with Branch to take down the Rosenberg building, a narrow, 115-foot structure at Jefferson and Campbell Avenue, where the Star City Diner is now.
"We didn't have any expertise in demolition; it was Alan," recalled Branch President Ralph Shivers. Amos used a crane and probably didn't drop as much as a 2-by-4 on Southern Pawn Shop next door, Shivers said.
Shivers described Amos as a hard worker who has always taken good care of his employees.
Amos took over the demolition business in 1962 after his father died.
"I was just a dumb young kid, really," Amos said. "I learned [demolition] by trial and error. I made a lot of mistakes."
When he took over, the business had three employees. It now has 12 employees, truck drivers and equipment operators who make roughly $10 an hour. Company revenues are about $1.5 million a year.
The company will move sometime this year into a new office and shop building on 2.5-acres on Pocahontas Avenue Northeast.
"I love the demolition business; I have never lost my enthusiasm for my work," said Amos, 59.
That was not always true.
His father, William David Amos, started the business in 1949 and at first the younger Amos wasn't interested. "Daddy always came home dirty; I never wanted any part of it," he said.
During the past 34 years Amos' business has grown and he has built a reputation as the man who takes Roanoke apart. He specializes in demolition, but occasionally does excavation and trucking work as well.
The demolition work after a devastating fire at the Singer Furniture plant in February 1985 and the big flood that November boosted demand for Amos' business, allowing him to buy more equipment.
He bids on jobs within a 200-mile radius of Roanoke. His main competitors are in Richmond and Greensboro, N.C. Typically, he looks at about 10 jobs a week, bids on five and gets one, he said. He averages 50 to 60 contracts a year.
Most of Amos' jobs are repeat business, he said. His regular customers include Branch and other general contractors in the region and Norfolk Southern Corp.
The demolition business is hard to get into, partly because of insurance requirements and the competition, said Mike Taylor, executive director of the 600-member National Association of Demolition Contractors in Doylestown, Pa.
Nationally, about 1,000 companies are in the demolition business full time, Taylor estimated . He said their revenue runs around $1 billion a year but adds that's only an educated guess because all the companies are private and many refuse to report their sales.
The price Amos charges for a job varies with factors such as the doomed building's nearness to other structures, its distance to the landfill and the landfill's charges. Subcontractors clear buildings of hazardous asbestos before Amos begins his work.
Amos quit salvaging materials from his demolition jobs in 1983 because people weren't interested in that kind of work anymore. He sometimes gives salvageable material to people willing to haul it away themselves, before demolition begins.
In some other parts of the country, Taylor said, the salvage value of a building gives the demolition contractor his profit.
"The key to making money in this business is being able to move quickly," Amos said. Pricing demands that his crews get the job done quickly and efficiently, he said.
The Patton Avenue houses, for instance, could each be taken down to their foundation and hauled to the city's landfill transfer station - all within four hours - by using the $200,000 excavating machine.
One of the toughest jobs he's taken on, Amos said, was demolishing the old Norfolk and Western Railway roundhouse at Shafers Crossing in Roanoke. It took two months.
The roundhouse, which could accommodate 24 steam engines at a time for servicing, was built of wooden beams tied with bolts and steel rods. It sat on a thick concrete foundation that took 78 rail gondola cars to haul away.
One of his more tricky jobs involved a fire-damaged house on Washington Avenue in Southeast Roanoke. The house sat between two others with only three feet clearance on one side and four feet on the other. Amos put steel cables around the house to hold it up as he tore it down. That job took a week.
Liability insurance is a big expense for his business and safety is a top priority, Amos said. He's been lucky so far and hasn't had any major accidents, he said.
Amos said he would like to add more modern equipment but is not interested in getting bigger. "If we grew any bigger we'd have to reorganize the whole outfit."
Amos already has to spend most of his time in the office. He doesn't like that; he'd rather be out running the equipment. But he can make more money in the office working on bids, he said.
When he gets bothered with all that paperwork, Amos has a good outlet for his frustrations. "I go out and tear down a building," he said.
"It does relieve tension," he said. "Believe me; it really does."
LENGTH: Long : 130 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff. Alan Amos stands by as his son, Mark,by CNBuses a Case excavating machine to wreck a house on Patton Avenue.
The house is being torn down as part of the Second Street bridge-
and street-improvement project. color.