Jacksonville, Florida – The Wells Fargo building lettering was safely removed from the high-rise in downtown Jacksonville Sunday morning.
The helicopter glided across the skyline before reaching the top of the building. The equipment was lowered and a crew member connected each letter to the helicopter.
“The job has to be perfect,” said Walton Kinney, owner of Southeastern Lighting Solutions and co-owner of High Angle Services, “or someone could die, and we don’t want that.”
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Within minutes, the “O” was hooked up and flying back to where the helicopter had taken off.
“A successful day is one like we’re seeing now with blue skies, high winds and little disturbance from pedestrians or people in the water. We’re having a pretty good day right now,” Kinney said.
The letters, weighing more than 1,500 pounds, had been left lying around on top of a 35-storey building for 13 years.
Kinney said he was there when these bombs were placed and is now tasked with removing them.
“We’re trying to work as quickly as we can. It takes about two-and-a-half to three weeks to prepare a building like this for demolition,” Kinney said.
Once the letters were removed, they were taken to S Lot, across from Maxwell House, where they were unloaded before workers returned to do the same job again.
Twenty letters were pulled out, one by one, from the side of the building. The project left the outline of what was once part of the downtown skyline, but now looks a little different.
The letters will have the lights removed and will be cut to fit on the back of a semi-trailer.
From there, they will be recycled while workers clean the sides of the building.
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