Vanderbilt Medical: Oxford House

Spirtas Worldwide performed the full-scale demolition of the 12-story Oxford House, a two-way post-tension jack slab structure that had stood on the Vanderbilt Medical Center campus since the 1950s. Permanently evacuated two years earlier over collapse concerns, the aging structure sat as close as 5 feet from active hospital buildings and just 3 feet from the hospital's main patient entrance — with zero tolerance for disruption to ongoing hospital operations. Following extensive seismic monitoring, reshoring studies, and a third-party engineering plan developed with Thornton Tomasetti, Spirtas wrapped the entire building in a Doka protective exoskeleton — the first application of this system on a demolition project — to contain 100% of debris within the property line. Brokk demolition robots worked floor by floor from the roof down, with skidsteers relaying material to awaiting recycling trucks. The project was completed on target budget, 2.5 months ahead of schedule, with zero accidents, injuries, or near misses — and 100% of concrete, steel, and post-tension tendons recycled.