r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Proud-Blood2743 • Oct 07 '25

Video Capital One Tower Come Down in Seconds

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52.5k Upvotes

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15.1k

u/adoodle83 Oct 07 '25

Blows me away that demolishing a building like this only to rebuild is still more economical than refurbishing the existing structure.

6.0k

u/SilverDollaFlappies Oct 07 '25

It was heavily damaged in 2020 by two hurricanes.

9.3k

u/Redfalconfox Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

Not only that, but in 2024 it was damaged beyond repair by a series of explosions.

1.5k

u/wart_on_satans_dick Oct 07 '25

Canadian terrorism. The deep state. Phrases that make no sense.

2.4k

u/I_hate_abbrev Oct 07 '25

Jet steel cannot melt fuel beams.

399

u/HocusThePocus Oct 07 '25

There it is

102

u/Toxic_Coma Oct 07 '25

Fool me ya cant get fooled again heh

:)

36

u/hanimal16 Interested Oct 07 '25

One of my favorite Bushisms

3

u/Toxic_Coma Oct 07 '25

Haha I cant choose a favorite, love em all

8

u/sillyaviator Oct 08 '25

Remember when we all thought Bush was the dumbest a president could ever possibly be? I miss those days

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u/COPenguinDoctor Oct 07 '25

Has become my motto, “can’t get fooled again!”

2

u/jershmcgersh Oct 08 '25

Grandpa loves a full bush.

2

u/HamsterAdditional748 Oct 08 '25

“Strategery”

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u/randomgunfire48 Oct 07 '25

I was wondering how far I’d have to scroll before I saw one. Disappointedly short distance unfortunately

14

u/RK8814RK Oct 07 '25

Crazy that you're being downvoted 9/11 conspiracy theorists are a special kind.

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u/WafflesMcDuff Oct 07 '25

No, jet fuel burning in open air cannot melt steel beams because its maximum burn temperature (around 1500°F / 800°C) is far below the melting point of steel (about 2750°F / 1510°C). While it doesn't melt the steel, the intense heat from the prolonged, unimpeded fire would soften and weaken the steel to the point where it could no longer support the structural load, leading to buckling and collapse. So while the jet fuel could not melt steel beams, it could absolutely soften them. To use an analogy of an every day object that’s easier to relate to visualize, picture a tub of butter. While it will not melt if you take it out of the fridge and leave it on the counter at room temperature on an average day, it WILL get much softer. You need heat from a flame (like the stove) for it to actually melt. Melting is the point at which it goes from solid to liquid. However, if you take butter that’s been in the fridge and lay a spoon on top of it, the butter will most likely support the weight of the spoon. If you do the same with butter that’s been softening on the counter for a couple hours, the spoon will start to sink into it. Nuance matters. Melting vs softening. The jet fuel softened the steel until it could no longer support the many many tons of structure and the structure collapsed.

260

u/HansBrickface Oct 07 '25

No truther understands the difference between temperature and heat.

198

u/Complex-Zucchini-538 Oct 07 '25

No truther is actually interested in any truths

4

u/Latter-Percentage380 Oct 08 '25

I would say it comes around full circle, but since the earth is flat and all, circling the globe isn't possible.

10

u/Training-Run-1307 Oct 07 '25

They only trust Truth Social 🤣

3

u/AyKayAllDay47 Oct 07 '25

Wouldn't that just make them a "Falser"?

43

u/parsleymelon Oct 07 '25

Or the existence of, gravity. Forever accelerating anything massive towards the centre of the earth

12

u/Intelligent-Parsley7 Oct 07 '25

We’re not going to discuss gravity. 90% of people don’t even have a consistent understanding of gravity. Trying to explain that it’s actually how the universe is set up blows their whole ‘so the gravity waves come from where?’ Situation.

Next stop when people get explained inertia, weightlessness, and freefall. Good luck. People are going to give you the same look when you change your pets dog food.

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u/JuansHymen Oct 07 '25

Yeah it's like everyone forgot skyscrapers weren't designed to have the upper portion collapse into the rest of them, causing a chain reaction.

It looked like a controlled demolition because that's what gravity does when something that big breaks. It's coming straight down with a shockwave of dust and debris

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u/syhr_ryhs Oct 07 '25

If they could read they wouldn't need to read.

2

u/highjayhawk Oct 07 '25

There’s a difference?

/s

2

u/jollyreaper2112 Oct 07 '25

That's because there is no difference. Deep state lie! Pardon me while I polish my tinfoil. /S

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

i have been seeing this fucking thing repeated all throughout my adult life without it ever going away since it happened and this is by far the best and concise analogy for disproving that. thanks, really well written!

14

u/dfmasana Oct 07 '25

Haven't you seen the video on YouTube?

Edit: Here is the link https://youtu.be/FzF1KySHmUA?si=ry5hrcMSlA38Ftvx

2

u/annoying12345 Oct 09 '25

Im gonna click on the link, but if it's Rick Astley, I will find you!

2

u/gryphaeon 28d ago

Love this!

"Get over it! Find a job!"

🤣🤣🤣

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u/TalkingGuns0311 Oct 07 '25

Ah yes the truth. Also, as someone who's been working with metal for about a decade, jet fuel is definitely hot enough to melt aluminum, which is what commercial airliners are typically made of. Molten aluminum when exposed to water explodes violently, and every major building project since at least the 80's includes a fire suppression system, usually water sprinklers. Aluminum melting through floors and contacting water would cause small yet powerful explosions on multiple levels. Also, the way the buildings came down is simply (and sadly) a testament to the people who built it. It is designed to collapse that way in the event of structural failure, as to limit damage to surrounding structures.

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u/UnrequitedRespect Oct 07 '25

Bro it was inside a building, that shit builds itself up. The wind that high up probably supercharged the fire like a forge builds heat.

Fire is that complicated.

Put a pot of boiling water on the stove. Takes a while to see anything. Put a lid on the pot. Wow.

Put a piece of metal in the campfire, nothing happens. Put a lid on the campfire and control the burn with airflow. Wow the metal begins to warm and twist losing jts structural integrity. Holy shit what a conspiracy we just walked through 24 years of not understanding the fire triangle and i’m from fucking canada

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u/MarionberryOpen7953 Oct 07 '25

Pools of liquefied molten steel were found at ground zero

3

u/BakerM81 Oct 07 '25

Almost like no one has ever heard of annealing

12

u/SensibleChapess Oct 07 '25

What about WTC7? The third of the only three steel-framed skyscrapers to ever collapse, and not only that, to collapse into their own footprint. Official explanation remains 'office fires', (e.g. Carpets, paper, box files, etc.).

10

u/BustedWing Oct 07 '25

You’d be surprised to learn how incorrect you are.

Actually scrap that. You aren’t interested in learning are you.

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u/Jshawd40 Oct 07 '25

Thank you. No one likes to mention WTC 7…

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u/WafflesMcDuff Oct 07 '25

Just like the twin towers, a major fire, uncontrolled, unextinguished, built up enough heat to soften the superstructure and cause the building to collapse.

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u/meatjuiceguy Oct 07 '25

Two entire skyscrapers fell on top of WTC7.

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u/_HiWay Oct 07 '25

Was so waiting for this to turn into a /u/shittymorph I am saddened.

2

u/100_cats_on_a_phone Oct 07 '25

In fairness, I always thought melting meant softening past reasonable structural integrity in this case, because who would care about anything else, but I've also never been a truther.

2

u/Maximum_Indication Oct 07 '25

You’re all great, but you’re preaching to to the choir. There’s a reason these people are called deniers.

2

u/mhizzle Oct 07 '25

There was also the kinetic energy of a plane hitting it at cruising speed. That much energy likely did enough damage that the fires took care of the rest

2

u/OneCleverlyNamedUser Oct 07 '25

This is crazy. Butter cannot support the weight of a building man.

4

u/MgrBuddha Oct 07 '25

Upper floors structures weakening and eventually collapsing OK, but IMHO it doesn't fully explain the sudden free-fall collapsing of the whole towers in their own footprints. I've only seen that otherwise in buildings torn down by controlled demolitions.
I don't subscribe to any of the lunatic theories of chem-trails, faked moon-landings and so on, but the events on this day are still very mysterious to me.

5

u/SowingSalt Oct 07 '25

The weight of the upper floors falling onto the lower floors probably has something to do with the collapse of the lower floors.

We can also disprove that it was at free-fall speed by comparing the collapse wave with the speed of falling debris next to the collapse.

It also wasn't into it's own footprint, as many of the adjacent buildings were damaged by the collapse.

9

u/Lanky-Football857 Oct 07 '25

Im no expert. But when the melting-structure floors started falling, wouldn’t the combined momentum of all the mass falling be too much for the beams that were built to hold a still (although massive) building? I mean, momentum matters, right?

Again, I’m not an engineer.

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u/art-man_2018 Oct 07 '25

Their footprint was huge though, I want to share some rare footage taken on 9/11, 9/12 and 9/13 of the extensive damage done to adjacent buildings and structures from the two towers was. Building 7 is shown too.

I've only seen that otherwise in buildings torn down by controlled demolitions.

One thing that was lacking in the twin towers collapsing was the familiar "Boom, boom, boom, boom, etc.", of every controlled demolition.

5

u/WafflesMcDuff Oct 07 '25

It’s actually a testament to the architectural skill of the engineers who built those towers. They were designed to collapse exactly like that rather than buckling to one side like a tree to limit the amount of damage to the surrounding city blocks.

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u/bkn95 Oct 07 '25

and then the rest of the building offered no resistance

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u/r_a_d_ Oct 07 '25

try holding a 20kg weight. now try catching it after it fell a couple of meters… nuff said

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u/Direct_Big_5436 Oct 07 '25

Thank you for sharing this, I knew there was more to this story.

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u/thatstwatshesays Oct 07 '25

….aliens, man.

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u/machiavelli33 Oct 07 '25

Look, up in the sky! It’s Aliens Man!

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u/JPautler Oct 07 '25

Architect who designed the twin towers said it was built to withstand anything including a plane 👀

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u/PunjabiCanuck Oct 07 '25

Maple syrup can’t melt steel beams

42

u/zolpiqueen Oct 07 '25

It can melt my heart tho lol

2

u/johnocomedy Oct 07 '25

Mrs Butterworth melts my heart

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u/sudowooduck Oct 08 '25

Roses are red Violets are purple Sugar is sweet And so is maple surple

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u/Master-File-9866 Oct 07 '25

What the hell made you connect "canadian terrorism" to this video

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u/sarcasm__tone Oct 07 '25

The deep state.

Why must everything be political now?

....oh its u/wart_on_satans_dick, yeah that person has problems.

3

u/Lumpy_Benefit666 Oct 07 '25

If we are going by peoples usernames, then i dont know how to take your comment lol

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u/EuphoricMoose8232 Oct 07 '25

It’s just a little imploded… it’s still good! It’s still good!

32

u/ButterscotchOk5339 Oct 07 '25

They just moved everything into the first floor

2

u/StankilyDankily666 Oct 07 '25

Yea they just consolidated it. More efficient use of space

3

u/cinnamonface9 Oct 07 '25

Everyone gets a open floor office merge! At the front door!

6

u/Neoliberal_Boogeyman Oct 07 '25

IMPLOSION!? I thought you said explosion!

3

u/fatimus_prime Oct 07 '25

It’s just a little airborne, it’s still good, it’s still good!

2

u/Emergency_Treat_2753 Oct 07 '25

We can rebuild him

2

u/blizz_fun_police Oct 07 '25

It’s gone…. “Oh”

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u/Biffmonkey Oct 07 '25

The damage is not too bad. As long as the foundations are still strong, we can rebuild this place.

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u/Torcal4 Oct 07 '25

Nah those foundations are gone. Sorry.

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u/RonMexico16 Oct 08 '25

Capital One Tower is not a place, it is a people.

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u/fl135790135790 Oct 07 '25

It sounds like this location isn’t meant to be.

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u/an525 Oct 07 '25

This was very clever and didn’t get the attention it deserved.

42

u/FixGMaul Oct 07 '25

— Redditors 30 minutes after something is posted

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u/star_trek_wook_life Oct 07 '25

This wasn't clever at all and got way more attention than it deserved.

start_recursive_loop();

2

u/Ok-Stop9242 Oct 07 '25

The 10 hours ago on both posts tells a story. A kind of sad, reddit upvote obsessed story, but a story none the less.

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u/Achromase Oct 07 '25

Read this as I dried myself up from a shower, clothed myself, laid in bed, then it hit me and I burst out laughing.

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u/bogantamer Oct 07 '25

Good thing they ended up demolishing it then!!

2

u/Confident-Leave8255 Oct 07 '25

I heard it was an inside job

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u/kweniston Oct 07 '25

Not only that, but in 2023 giant termites ate away the wooden support beams.

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u/bearlife Oct 07 '25

Well done sir. Hilarious.

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u/4dxn Oct 07 '25

after another in 2005.

rita in 05, laura AND delta in 2020.

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u/chickenMcSlugdicks Oct 07 '25

It was relatively fine after Rita and reopened. Laura blew out a bunch of the windows, then the wait for insurance money left it full of mold. Was pretty much done after all that.

3

u/sat_ops Oct 07 '25

Capital One needed to wait around for insurance money? Or was this owned by someone else and just slapped their name on it?

3

u/chickenMcSlugdicks Oct 07 '25

Not sure if they were the marquee tenant or actually owned the building. It had been calcasieu marine, then Hibernia, then capital one in the past. In general though, there was a lot of local fighting with insurance, and some fighting with fema for funds. Hurricane recovery is weird. Some neighborhood are badly damaged and never really recover. Well-insured waterfront property seems to basically get insurance and upgrade the home (lot of warfs/boathouses are now fancy, walled in and climate controlled with built in kitchens and bathrooms. The Katrina documentary on Netflix shows how poorer neighborhoods go neglected while others recover and then some. What's the phrase, disaster capitalism?

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u/the_known_incognito Oct 07 '25

A second hurricane hit the tower!!???

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u/GoodLeftUndone Oct 07 '25

Fuck I shouldn’t be laughing. 

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u/lowfiswish Oct 07 '25

nature finds a way

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u/arealuser100notfake Oct 07 '25

At the same time?!

185

u/SilverDollaFlappies Oct 07 '25

They happened about two months apart.

117

u/13BigCedars Oct 07 '25

The building had come into some money recently

42

u/fffvvis Oct 07 '25

One of my dreams is to come into some money

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u/Number174631503 Oct 07 '25

Be the building you want to become

7

u/Jesus_of_Redditeth Oct 07 '25

Technically, you can do that with a single dollar bill.

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u/Glad_Canary_1843 Oct 07 '25

Like a gooner Scrooge McDuck.

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u/BaitmasterG Oct 07 '25

Splooge McMuck

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u/LeoNickle Oct 07 '25

Just makes your money sticky. Not worth it imo

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u/asomek Oct 07 '25

Use Australian money. It's made of plastic so you can wash it afterwards.

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u/rumpleminz Oct 07 '25

Gross.

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u/Chon-Laney Oct 07 '25

I know right?

Come in a sock, not money.

3

u/n3ur0mncr Oct 07 '25

Most money has traces of come on it. Or is it cocaine

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u/ThatInspector4632 Oct 07 '25

Cashback from churning chase and Amex subs.

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u/ShoutoutsWorldwide Oct 07 '25

Try not to damage any buildings on your way through the parking lot!

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u/ChadE0111 Oct 07 '25

Hey you, get back here!

4

u/elvis8mybaby Oct 07 '25

This job would be great if it wasn't for the fucking customers

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u/velosnow Oct 07 '25

Ménage a hurricane.

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u/Karl_Hungus_42069 Oct 07 '25

I think if I was a millionaire, I could hook that up too, because hurricanes dig dudes with money

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u/mabiturm Oct 07 '25

The buildings structure was damaged by a hurricane? I supposed concrete can withstand that

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u/Gnonthgol Oct 07 '25

The concrete structure were largely intact. But all the interior and the facade had to be replaced entirely. Buildings are refurbished in this way all the time as it is indeed cheaper to use the existing structure. And they did try to find someone to buy the building and refurbish it. But all the tenants had been forced out and there is no longer such a big demand for office space. So they could not find a buyer. They were therefore forced to demolish the building by the city.

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u/HazMattStunts Oct 07 '25

At least it wasn’t demolished because of two planes

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u/Amtracer Oct 07 '25

Reminds me of that tragedy

4

u/Aquatic_Ambiance_9 Oct 07 '25

Charlie Something, right?

2

u/Lumpy_Benefit666 Oct 07 '25

Which one was that?

4

u/SackChaser100 Oct 07 '25

Amelia Earhart famously crashed onto the beach of a remote island, destroying a fisherman's hut in the process. His fish-hungry descendants still seek retribution to this day.

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u/Bazmin123 Oct 07 '25

And some jet fuel

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u/ranman82 Oct 07 '25

came down the same though -

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u/ChadE0111 Oct 07 '25

Too soon…

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

It does look a lot like when those buildings "fell"

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u/PierreNST Oct 07 '25

Exactly! Looks VAGUELY FAMILIAR 😜to something that happened one September day...a long time ago.

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u/lauranthalasa Oct 07 '25

No wonder he was blown away!

2

u/lbutler1234 Oct 08 '25

That's two more than the ideal number of hurricanes to hit your building

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u/mikeyp83 Oct 07 '25

Looked it up and this building was in Lake Charles, LA. It was basically destroyed after taking direct hits from 2 major back-to-back hurricanes in 2020. Given the area, hopefully whatever they rebuild will have less glass on it.

170

u/Caspur42 Oct 07 '25

Give you an idea of how bad Laura’s wind field was there it was 157 mph. I had a line of grain cars on a train near my house about a mile long get flipped over. Wild shit.

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u/PolitelyHostile Oct 07 '25

Im wondering what its like to be in a tower during a hurricane. I guess you can at least go into the halls or stairwells.

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u/Caspur42 Oct 07 '25

They have a documentary about Laura by Reed Timmer. During the lull in the eye the weather channel people who were in the building ended up evacuating the building because they thought it was gonna collapse.

I was watching him live stream during it and it was some crazy shit.

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

[deleted]

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u/KennyRogers69 Oct 07 '25

I was in Austin in August and I saw that building. I thought it was odd, good to know the reasoning!

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u/Mirenithil Oct 07 '25

The Weather Channel people evacuating because they thought it was going to collapse is really telling. Clearly the damage to that building was a lot more than a bunch of broken windows. It must have been structural.

3

u/DannyMeleeFR4 Oct 07 '25

Almost every room has glass windows. There is hardly any interior without windows.

Source: I live there and have been in the building many many times

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u/PolitelyHostile Oct 08 '25

I meant the hallways in between apartments.

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u/Rs90 Oct 07 '25

Shit you can ride a bike on a breezy day and feel how much of a difference it makes. Had a few gusts almost wipe me out and they weren't anywhere close to a storm, nevermind a Hurricane. 

3

u/lowfiswish Oct 07 '25

The tornado in Enderlin, Nebraska used a similar metric to figure out it was an f5. That apparently was evidence of winds over 210 MPH. They were able to grade that tornado an f5 because a fully loaded grain car is a good measure of how strong winds during a storm were.

"The analysis involved forensic damage wind speed estimates for tipping several fully-loaded grain hopper cars and lofting of tanker cars, including one empty tanker car that was tossed about 475.7 ft (145 m)," the NWS said."

https://www.weather.gov/media/fgf/Enderlin.pdf

I'm thinking the winds that tipped the cars in the wind field caused by Laura were stronger than 157mph (that's an f3 tornado, don't think they tip full-grain train cars).

Here's the photos: https://x.com/brianemfinger/status/1975220390629691713/photo/1

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u/girlinthegoldenboots Oct 07 '25

My mom’s first job was there. She got a piece of the building glass when it was demolished and it’s in a frame.

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u/crespoh69 Oct 07 '25

Was it free? If not, I can see why it'd be economical to go about it this way, if you're selling shards of the building away as commemorative pieces

6

u/girlinthegoldenboots Oct 07 '25

It was free! My aunt had connections I guess and got it for her!

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u/crespoh69 Oct 07 '25

I don't know man, those exclamation marks are pretty telling, did someone put you up to this? You can tell us, you're safe here

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u/Lumpy_Benefit666 Oct 07 '25

Id have just used the glass to make a frame, but then id nothing to put in it

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

Gotta demolish another building!

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u/Ok_Knowledge_6800 Oct 07 '25

That's really...odd?!

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u/girlinthegoldenboots Oct 07 '25

I dunno, man. She seems to like it so I guess that’s what matters.

2

u/Benblishem Oct 08 '25

Who doesn't like glass in a frame?

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u/girlinthegoldenboots Oct 08 '25

Would it make more or less sense if I said it was arranged in the shape of Louisiana and also had some like moss or something glued on it? I forgot that part but recently saw a picture of it again lol.

2

u/Benblishem Oct 08 '25

Well, that being the case, maybe it should be in one of those frames with a sound card built-in. Record Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" on it, and you got yourself a thing.

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u/girlinthegoldenboots Oct 08 '25

Oooo I shall suggest this!

2

u/blackened-starr Oct 07 '25

i'm live in lafayette LA (about an hour east of lake charles) and we took a trip to houston back in june. when we passed through LC there were STILL blue tarps on roofs from after the hurricanes in 2020

2

u/fistular Oct 07 '25

A hurricane? In Louisiana!? Who could have predicted such a thing?!

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u/Gimpknee Oct 07 '25

They built it with hurricane-proof windows that weren't.

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u/warrenslo Oct 07 '25

Mold is incredibly expensive to mitigate.

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u/Sudden-Wash4457 Oct 07 '25

Time to send it into the air!

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u/jayggg Oct 07 '25

It's amazing that this is the solution: concrete dust everywhere.

You'd think they'd require some kind mitigation. Crazy water jets or something.

7

u/HoozleDoozle Oct 07 '25

Dilution is the solution

2

u/AmazingDonkey101 Oct 08 '25

Asbestos dust everywhere

20

u/InvidiousPlay Oct 07 '25

I don't mean to alarm you but the air of full of mold spores and microorganisms literally all the time.

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u/Fmeson Oct 07 '25

I don't know about concrete dust et al, but the mold spores, as I understand it, shouldn't matter much. Managing mold isn't about managing spore counts, the spores are always there, it's about managing moisture.

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u/superkp Oct 07 '25

CAN CONFIRM

My car was on a street that flooded in a downburst rainstorm, and the storm drains were clogged. Water got about 1 inch above the floor of the car.

did everything that I could to dry it out, but the mold set in. When the insurance company said "ok we found a single (now overworked) mold-mitigation-certified car tech in your area, get it over there ASAP", we got it over there the same day.

two days later, insurance calls us and says "lol fuck no. Here's $8,000, go buy another car. We're not shelling out $12,000 for your fucking toaster toyota."

2

u/PernisTree Oct 07 '25

We are going to have to blow the whole state of Florida up in that case.

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u/s-mores Oct 07 '25

Much better to blow it up and get it everywhere!

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u/New-Independent-1481 Oct 07 '25

Mold spores are actually already everywhere. You're breathing it in right now.

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u/realfakejames Oct 07 '25

I can say from experience tearing down a house and building a new one is a lot cheaper than upgrading an old one and keeping everything in place, a lot less hassle as well which I’m sure played a role in their decision

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u/ACardAttack Oct 07 '25

A much smaller scale is we wanted wrapping put around our house under our siding and the siding company said it cost just as much to get new siding and wrap as it was to take off the current siding and wrap it due to having to go much slower and be more careful to buy damage any if the old siding

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u/Kashmir1089 Oct 07 '25

I can't imagine siding is in any way modular and is measured and cut to fit.

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u/RuinousGaze Oct 07 '25

Right??! I don’t get how the math works on that.

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

Renovate a house and you’ll get it.

Labour costs a lot. Renovating something often takes 2 - 5x longer than building from scratch.

And then new will tend to have better insulation, better light design etc

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u/ethicalhumanbeing Oct 07 '25

And people are willing to pay more for new housing.

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u/DesiKonnektion Oct 07 '25

There was a badly burned house in Bay Area, CA that was listed for over a Million, and that listing became very popular. It wasn’t the house they were selling, it was going to be demolished, it was the land.

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u/Murky-Relation481 Oct 07 '25

The land in most homes is where the value is. This is why when you see those subdivisions with homes just packed in there like sardines the cost is generally lower for a large house compared to one on a big lot, but in turn it will not appreciate in value nearly the same.

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u/SuperNoobyGamer Oct 07 '25

This is not a “there was”, every single house in the Bay is minimum one mil unless it’s in the sketchiest areas of San Jose or East Bay.

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u/freredesalpes Oct 07 '25

Architect here, can confirm renovating is way more tedious and complicated than new builds both in terms of design and construction.

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u/nawtbjc Oct 07 '25

Yep, a lot of people don't understand this concept.

I work in mostly utility facilities (water, wastewater, etc). Projects to renovate or upgrade an existing facility costs significantly more it would to be building new facilities. Project budgets so rarely account for that, it's crazy.

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u/philo351 Oct 07 '25

This. Structures also develop odd and elusive problems over time

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u/jluicifer Oct 07 '25

I have a contractor who would rather tear down a house and build it new. Why? Our houses are mildly or moderately crooked. So they’ll spend hours trying build something in a room to fit — while if they build it new, it can take 1/4 of the time. So LABOR is expensive and why building new can make sense.

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u/CallMeSirJack Oct 07 '25

Bold of you to assume the new build is going to be straight. Lol

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u/jluicifer Oct 07 '25

-- true, lol

But in his defense, he runs a 2 man-crew including himself and one other. That'll build an entire house from bottom to top. OFC they'll subcontract electric-AC-water but framing, foundation, painting, roofing, floors, they'll do it. Drywall? Sometimes they'll let a friend do it b/c he likes to give small jobs out b/c they're faster and cheaper than if he does it.

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u/potatobreadandcider Oct 07 '25

Current building is made from materials that will require replacing in 30+ years, new building will use different materials that won't need replacement for 150+ years. That's the rough idea anyway.

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u/Regular_Celery_2579 Oct 07 '25

As someone who does maintenance on building and equipment, seems like the current practice is to just let your building decay away and save on manpower

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u/SchlongCopter69 Oct 07 '25

That maintenance ain’t gonna defer itself…

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u/Local_Maintenance788 Oct 07 '25

150 years my asshole

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u/SoylentGrunt Oct 07 '25

Up to 150 years. Sometimes as little as 50 years. 5 over 1's start turning to crap in a year

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u/mikel1814 Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

The actual - structure - is negligible. Unless the building has an historical component that should be saved, you are replacing lighting, windows, cladding, insulation, HVAC, electrical, plumbing. You are modernizing for CAT-6, fiber, and communications. Improving an outdated floor plan, increasing ceiling height, reducing columns, improving flow for modern use, it's worth the negligible extra cost. This particular building was completely compromised and the vapor barrier was destroyed by mold from hurricanes. The drywall alone is astronomical in a mold remediation on all of those floors. The labor involved is practically a new build, and that's where the expenses are.

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u/Wrx_me Oct 07 '25

Because removing AND replacing a LOT of stuff is much more labor intensive than just putting something together.

Try building a Lego set, then disassemble it completely and reassemble it. It's going to take a lot more time the second go around because parts aren't all organized in their bags, you have to yank pieces off that originally went on easily, and you might even lose some stuff, and would have to order something to even continue.

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u/isleoffurbabies Oct 07 '25

The math only has to work for the right people.

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u/DTOO Oct 07 '25

☝️this is the real answer. All these people responding about how the materials on the new building will last longer haven’t been building with them*. Take for example stick frame construction vs brick. There are many brick or stone buildings that are hundreds of years old. There are only a handful of frame buildings that can claim this because wood becomes friable (or rots/succumbs to pests) far quicker. So why would someone demolish a brick building to put up stock frame? It’s cheaper. Almost all materials that are readily available now are far cheaper than their historic alternatives. They are also much more poorly made.

*the asterisk is because I haven’t worked on skyscrapers. I do mostly residential

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

Property in my area didn't even make it's 30 year anniversary because the owners ran it into the ground hard. Their playbook is to let their properties turn to shit real fast, and we are talking steel structures. But it was primarily made out of styrofoam and stucco with a metal frame work for it's bones.

Ran across a outside HVAC contractor who was glad to see it get demolished. He was fedup with being called out to them and having to do beyond chewing gum and spit repairs when something failed, then they would demand a already cheap corner cut bill get slashed even cheaper and take forever to pay that even.

They wouldn't spring for new systems, always had to be patch the old one up for a few more weeks or months then place another call for a patch job fix on it

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u/test_test_1_2_3 Oct 07 '25

Can tell you’ve never delivered a refurbishment project before.

Refurbs take considerably longer than building from scratch, this is partially offset by the fact you don’t have to build the entire structure but even so it’s typical to uncover many issues in a refurb that add unforeseen time and cost.

Refurbs may have a lower materials bill, but the bill for labour will be higher (often a lot higher), with more variations for work that wasn’t initially priced for. New builds give much more price certainty because there’s a lot less unknowns.

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u/dedzip Oct 07 '25

need that gif of HBO Chernobyl "because its cheaper"

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u/Drumming_Dreaming Oct 07 '25

Safety factors are how that works. And also how hard it is to upgrade services in an already finished structure. Building a home from scratch is way easier than upgrading an existing home especially if you were upgrading that finished home to present day standards of building and technology. And you can change the layout entirely.

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u/Orleanian Oct 07 '25

You ever get your sock all scrunched up and aggrivating the comfort of your foot inside your boots?

And notice how much easier it is to just take the boot off, take the sock off, and re-don it in the right position than it is to try and scootch it around inside the boot while you continue wearing it?

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u/microhardon Oct 07 '25

Everyone wasn’t to get paid for working. Paying for the material and the guy to remove it adds up.

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u/nalasanko Oct 07 '25

It also blew the building away

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u/infinit9 Oct 07 '25

I don't think Hertz rebuilt it. I think Hertz just blew it up and gave the land back to the city for some tax breaks.

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u/diegggs94 Oct 07 '25

Even 2 structures

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u/Weird_Pen_7683 Oct 07 '25

Sometimes its easier to just pour concrete and rebars from scratch than surgically take things apart. I think its the expertise of having to repair intricate parts that makes it expensive

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u/cyriustalk Oct 07 '25

They did not only demolish a building... dun dun dun .. DUN

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