Demolition of Cheswick Power Plant in Springdale continues as 30% remains standing

The demolition of an old power plant facility didn't go as planned on Sunday in Springdale. While some of the building came down, some of it is still standing in ruin.

The saga in Springdale over the old Cheswick Power Plant continues. 

While 70% of the building is reportedly down, the property owner said they had engineers out Monday and planned for meetings with the borough to finally get it all down.

What some in the community thought was an eyesore, didn't get any curb appeal on Sunday.

"It's bad, I guess. Makes you wonder how many times they're going to take to get it all down," Terry Ellis said.   

According to the demolition crew of D&B Wrecking, they used a cable pull technique after the prior demolitions with explosives left a mess and damage to nearby homes in 2023. Several neighbors filed a lawsuit in the wake of that. The demo crew said some cables didn't work as planned.

"We're going to spend the next week cleaning out some of the debris so we have a good landing zone to bring down the last 30%" Shara Environmental Redevelopment Group President Scott Reschly said.

While some residents like to see the relics of yesterday, others are ready to move on. 

"It's probably an eyesore to everybody else, but I appreciate it from a time in America where people were hard working and made a living wage," Springdale resident who didn't want to share their name said.

This 13-story partially demoed building now looks post-apocalyptic. Three homes in the immediate area of the demolition are still blocked off with the rest of Porter Street. Those residents will be in hotels for the next week. People are hoping the next demolition is the one that finally brings down the rest of this mangled metal.

"If they had hired somebody to do the job right the first time, it would have been done. Hopefully they can hire the correct person the next time," a neighborhood resident said.

KDKA reached out to see if the plans for a meeting Monday between the involved parties happened or not.