Dunn Wing Demolition Well Underway

The demolition of the Dunn Wing at Danvers High School is well underway, according to a report in the Salem News and an update this week by Town Manager Wayne Marquis.

The demolition had originally been planned for August but was delayed when asbestos was discovered in the glue around the windows in the wing.

Marquis told the Board of Selectmen that the work does not involve a wrecking ball and instead it is pulled down, section-by-section, with backhoes and similar equipment.

The material is sorted into piles of steel and brick and hauled away. Marquis said previously the trucks would not haul from the site during opening and closing time of school. The brick with asbestos is put in a separate bin that is covered and taken away to be properly disposed.

The connector between the existing school and the wing was removed last week.

The entire process will take about three weeks, Marquis said.

“It will look dramatically different without the three-story, 90,000 square foot building,” Marquis told the Board of Selectmen this week.

The work is the first major step in Phase 2 of the $71 million to rennovate the school. Phase 1 was opened earlier this month.

The demolition work is dust-free, Department of Public Works director David Lane told the Salem News, so that the occupied parts of the neighboring school are not occupied. The noise from the work has not been issue, Lane told the News.

The wing was named after Cornelius Dunn, the longest-serving principal of the old Holten High.

The wing has been home to the middle school before the Holten-Richmond Middle School was renovated and students moved there. It also hosted Town Hall while that building was renovated.