The ground 100 feet away trembled as a 36-ton John Deere 330C LC excavator extended its giant claw and tugged down chunk after chunk of what used to be the trim building at Outboard Marine Corp.

At another end of the OMC property, a two-ton skid-steer loader rammed away at a cinder-block wall in the former die-cast building, each hit taking out sections big enough to welcome a car.

The buildings have been vacant for half a decade and by December a third of them will be gone, cleared out for what the city hopes will a key step in the revitalization of its Lake Michigan lakefront.

"I can't wait until this building comes down," said Mayor Richard Hyde, pointing to the red-brick die-cast building on the east end of the property, right where Seahorse Drive turns toward Municipal Beach. "When people drive down here, that's what they see."

The view of the north lakefront is expected to open up when the buildings are cleared away, something that Gary Deigan, the city's engineering consultant on the project, said will make the nearby Coke plant property more marketable for redevelopment.

"This is a strategic decision for us, because of the lakefront development plan," Deigan said. "It's part of a package with the coke plant. When you look to the north from there, you'll see the lake instead of another building."

Hyde said the 40-acre Coke plant site, which underwent a $25 million environmental clean-up that began in 2004, could go out to the development community for proposals "in the next month or two."

The OMC property, meanwhile, is being eyed for both residential development and an "eco-park" that would provide a buffer between the proposed residences and the industrial uses north of the beach, including the North
Shore Sanitary District site and the Midwest Generation power plant.

According to Deigan, it was determined that three of the OMC buildings were environmentally clean and could be torn down right away