Over the past 6 years, it has
been fun working with designers, contractors and owners at PlanetReuse. Making
connections that would otherwise not occur by providing tools and technologies
through our network to keep materials out of the landfill is what we do. We
work with reclaimed gym flooring, bleachers, lockers, seating, etc. from sports
facilities throughout North America. We also work with less glamorous materials
like reclaimed turkey barns, warehouses, carpet tile, dated office space
materials, cubicles, old brick, and many more ordinary materials.
Learning the story behind the
materials is part of the fun, like hearing what happened in structures coming
down — what was originally manufactured in old structures, who ate at the
restaurant, and in this case, what famous, world-renowned artist painted
amazing work on it. So when we had the opportunity to connect a buyer and a
seller on a significant project like the Milwaukee Buck’s MECCA floor, we get
pretty excited. We worked with Andrew Gorzalski, the eventual buyer of the
floor, to confirm through many panel shots and requests that this was the actual
floor that was for sale. We worked to draw boxes on a floor image to go along
with the actual panel paint colors (see the attached photos). It was a perfect
match.
Robert Indiana is an amazing artist and he created a beautiful floor for
Milwaukee back in the 50’s. It mesmerized all players and coaches that played
in MECCA. Many projects and materials can be parted out to various buyers who
all “want a piece” of a certain material, but this was ideal to keep as one
masterpiece.
We’d love to see shows on all
of the building material reuse projects we work on, to help spread awareness to
the 80% of people that don’t even know the reuse industry exists. When director Chris James Thompson, who was working on a piece for ESPN’s "30 for 30” series, approached us,
we jumped at the opportunity to tell the story.
On June 11th, look for
PlanetReuse on ESPN’s award-winning “30 for 30” documentary series that will
tell the story of the MECCA Floor. Our marketplace and social media connections
helped connect the buyer and seller.
Here’s a great article about the MECCA floor and film by Doug
Russell with 620WTMJ NewsRadio.
Enjoy MECCA!
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| Material listing on PlanetReuse website |
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| Photo used to confirm exact match of original floor (see red boxes on overall gym floor image) |
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| Another photo used to confirm exact match of original floor |
