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Cincinnati Business Courier
February 19, 2001

King Wrecking Off to Norwood, Seeks Neighbors

By Andy Hemmer

The biggest name in the business of bringing down local buildings will soon leave its longtime home in Queensgate for a new, larger headquarters in Norwood.

King Wrecking Co., owned by Drew Lammers and Rubin Slovin, recently purchased a 144,000-square-foot Beech Street building, where the company will settle in this summer.

King Wrecking will only use about 20,000 square feet of the 115,000 square feet in the warehouse part of the building, and 7,000 square feet of an 18,000-square-foot office wing. The balance of the building will be leased on the open market.

"We've just gotten a lot bigger, and we needed something to handle our expansion. We've been landlocked down here for 46 years, and we just needed more land," said Lammers, vice president of King Wrecking. Slovin, president and founder of the company, is the only other owner.

The King Wrecking name is as big in Cincinnati construction as any other, having handled an estimated 90 percent of all major demolition projects, Lammers said. Notable implosions have been organized at Crosley Field, the Campbell County Jail and the Zoo Opera Pavilion.

The new building is situated on a seven-acre lot, slightly larger than the three-quarter-acre lot on Gest Street where King Wrecking has been since 1956.

King Wrecking would have preferred to stay in the city of Cincinnati, but Lammers said no suitable options were available. The company employs about 50 workers.

King Wrecking did not use a broker in its acquisition.

The seller of the Norwood building, ABC NACO, was represented by Bob Bunton, vice president at CB Richard Ellis.

Larry Bergman, president of the Bergman Group Inc., in Blue Ash, has been hired by King Wrecking to lease the remaining warehouse and office space.

Bergman is a specialist at finding unique retailers to fill up abandoned industrial facilities, as evidenced by the huge leases he's signed at the old Kroger candy plant in Springdale for retailers such as Dave & Buster's, Roberds and The Great Indoors.