Deconstruction crews salvage materials from historic Montana building

Plans for the Mercantile project, above, include a Marriott hotel and retail space.

Deconstruction crews in Missoula, Montana have completed their salvaging work on a historic downtown building and have made way for demolition crews to begin tearing it down, a report by the Missoulian says. Timber, steel, brick and other materials will be salvaged from the Missoula Mercantile.

Home ReSource, a non-profit building materials reuse center in Missoula, was able to save copper awning on the west exterior of the building, which will be reused in the construction of the new 150-room Marriott hotel with 23,000 square feet of ground floor retail space. According to the report, construction will begin as soon as the site is demolished, excavated, cleared and backfilled, which is scheduled to finish by June 1.

The building was constructed in stages, starting in the late 1870s, the report says. At least four different portions of the building were built at different times, with different materials and using different methods. Jason Nuckolls, deconstruction manager for Home ReSource, told the Missoulian that made the deconstruction process challenging.

Deconstruction crews were able to find 25 percent more salvageable material than expected, including large quantities of rough-cut lumber, timber beams and bricks that have old names carved in them dating back to the 1880s.

The wood and other materials will be stored at Home ReSource’s site and will be sold to the public. A brick giveaway, with site and date to be determined, is planned in the future.

HomeBase Montana, a planning, design and construction company in Bozeman, Montana, owns the building and will donate all the building materials they can’t use to the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula.

Spirtas Wrecking Co. from St. Louis will be conducting the systematic demolition, the report says, pulling apart the building piece-by-piece and salvaging any more materials Home ReSource was not able to get through salvaging by hand.