September 30, 2015

Dickson making quick work of Ikea garage

Photo by Benjamin Minnick [enlarge]

Crews from Dickson Co. have been ripping apart the big blue Ikea parking garage where shoppers parked next to the chain's Renton store at South 180th Street and Lind Avenue Southwest.

A Dickson spokesman said demolition is ahead of schedule and they expect to finish in 2.5 weeks. Crews recently started demolition of the 370,000-square-foot building's slab that is built upon a berm.

Dickson's arsenal includes four excavators and one loader, plus two back-up excavators.

Dickson is recycling about 96 percent of the building by sending co-mingled waste just a few blocks away to Industrial Waste Recyclers. Crews are also picking out reusable lumber to sell.

The parking garage and Ikea store are horseshoe-shaped buildings built about 35 years ago as aerospace electronics warehouses. Ikea in 1994 converted the eastern building into the current store, infilling the open part of the horseshoe.

Deacon Corp. later this year will start constructing a new 406,000-square-foot store in the parking garage's footprint.

The new store will have two levels, and an updated layout similar to other Ikea stores. It will have space for 50 room-settings, three model home interiors, a supervised children's play area, and a larger restaurant for serving Swedish specialties.

Dickson will come back to the 29-acre site in early 2017 to demolish the old 398,000-square-foot store to make room for 1,600 parking spaces.

Atlanta-based GreenbergFarrow is the architect, Barghausen Consulting Engineers is the civil engineer, and Transportation Engineering Northwest is the traffic consultant.