Jonesboro, AR — (JonesboroRightNow.com) — March 17, 2025 — Demolition of the former Citizens Bank building continues as a high-reach excavator began taking down parts of the structure Monday afternoon.
Demolition officially began on March 10, with workers tearing down a small two-story brick building and removing siding from the old Citizens Bank building. Now, crews are working to remove a section of the seven-story building.
“The machine is specifically built to do the job that it’s doing,” said Howard Ballard, construction superintendent for Nabholz Construction. “There are a couple of cameras [on the excavator’s claw], there’s monitors inside, and it allows him [the operator] to kind of get a bird’s eye view of exactly what’s he’s doing, even though he’s over 100 feet away.”
The part of the building being removed is sprayed with water to prevent any asbestos-containing material from becoming airborne.
Ballard said he expects overall demolition to take two to three months, and he expected crews to be able to use the high-reach excavator for about a month. He added that the bottom portion of the building is made of concrete, which would take longer for crews to take down and may require different tools.
“It depends on how it [demolition] goes. I would guess maybe a month [for the high-reach excavator],” Ballard said. “Obviously, it could be shorter than that, but probably upwards of a month and they’ll have to switch to a machine that kind of works on the lower portion of the building.”
Trucks to haul off the debris are expected to arrive Tuesday, Ballard said.
Mayor Harold Copenhaver was at the construction site Monday and said he was pleased to see progress on the building’s demolition.
“It’s very interesting to see a building that’s been standing there for over 50 years, within seconds it can be taken down,” Copenhaver said. “I’m proud of everybody working on things together because there was a lot of ins and outs that we had to really address. I’m just glad to see this day really starting to come to fruition.”
For the duration of construction, alternate traffic patterns are in place. Click here for information on new traffic patterns.
The City Council voted in January to approve the demolition of the building via wet demolition. The project is estimated to cost $3.25 million.