Heavy equipment at the old Ford plant, proposed demolition schedule online

They're moving at least one OVER SIZE LOAD onto the old Twin Cities Assembly Plant property in St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood. That beauty right there rolled down Ford Parkway and through the front gate as the snow started this afternoon.

City of St. Paul spokesman Joe Campbell affirmed that demolition of the historic Ford plant is approaching, but "No, not right away."

As with everything involved with the Ford plant, there's a considerable measure of due process involved. You can read more about it in the documents the city of St. Paul put up on its website today.

Maybe the most interesting document may be the proposed schedule. The plan says it may be 2015 before the land is actually on the market and 2018 before the last of the parking lot is torn out and removed from the site next to the Mississippi River.

There's also some very cool photos and diagrams in the "Subsurface Tunnel Evaluation Report" section of the documents.

And finally, there's a Ford Land rendering of the site after the assembly plant is torn down and the debris is carted away. Nothing left but native vegetation and birds flying around -- although there are provisions for redevelopment in the plan.

You can offer your two cents on the "Ford Site Decommissioning and Demolition" at a December 20th zoning committee meeting starting at 3:30p in St. Paul's City Hall. Note that the documents include the words "concrete crushing." City spokesman Joe Campbell says the real wrecking could start as early as April if all goes as planned.

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