It took less than a day for the Steinbach Centennial Arena to come crashing down. 

Wednesday was demolition day with excavators on site tearing down the walls of the old barn. By day's end, all that was left was a pile of rubble. 

On Thursday, crews were at the site bright and early to start hauling away the debris in order to make way for construction of the new Southeast Event Centre. 

Eldon Wallman is the city's Solid Waste Manager. He says all of the debris is being trucked to the Steinbach landfill. He notes anything that the city wanted to salvage was already pulled from that building prior to demolition and what remains will now find its permanent resting place at the landfill. 

Wallman says the cleanup crews are doing a good job of separating as much of the debris as they can. He notes what the team at the landfill is most interested in are the cinder blocks. 

"We got lots that we can do with that," says Wallman, referring to the cinder blocks. "That gets crushed up with our big machinery and used for road material. It's prime, prime material for us."

Wallman explains that they are continuously building new roads at the landfill because of its growth. He notes the crushed-up cinder blocks are great material for building their all-season roads, which saves them from buying gravel, which in the long run saves taxpayers. 

"It's nice to see that part of it's going to be put to good use even after the building is gone," adds Wallman. 

If you thought that maybe the pile of debris coming from the arena would be too much for the landfill to handle, guess again. Wallman says in reality, the arena was just one big hollow building. But, also, he says they get demolished buildings trucked to the landfill on practically a weekly basis. 

"But this has a bit of historic value to it, so it means something a little bit more," he says. 

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With files from Dave Anthony, Corny Rempel and Adi Loewen

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