Gov. Kathy Hochul called the 11-story eyesore “the only thing holding Albany back from its full potential” and cheered on the first strike from a construction vehicle into the side of the building.
Crews spent the past 13 months removing more than 4,500 tons of asbestos and other contaminated materials from the 99-year-old building, the governor’s office said.
Demolition will begin with a rail bridge connecting the building to an Amtrak spur, then continue with removal of various pieces of the building, officials said. The teardown of the building itself is expected to begin in December, according to authorities.
“This is the moment we’ve been waiting for,” Albany County Executive Dan McCoy said. “Each milestone brings us closer to removing the Central Warehouse from Albany’s skyline once and for all, and this is a big one. The end is finally in sight.”
Built in 1927, the warehouse hasn’t been used consistently since the 1980s. The site was even considered useless by 1996, when a local bank was planning to shut off electricity until the state attorney general stopped them due to fears of an environmental disaster.
After multiple decades of limited use and disrepair, the situation became more urgent in 2022, when fear of “imminent collapse” forced a shutdown of the Amtrak lines that run past the building.
When the teardown is finally complete, it will leave behind a “1.1-acre investment-ready site in a growing area of the City of Albany,” Hochul’s office said.
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