PROVO — Heavy equipment knocked down the Alumni House at Brigham Young University on Tuesday as workers moved quickly to clear away the building 44 years and one day after it was dedicated.
Speed has become the theme of BYU's project to build the new Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center, with fund raising moving rapidly and construction expected to be complete next summer.
A month ago, 40,000 donors had provided about half the cost of what BYU officials hope is an eye-pleasing, $35 million gateway to campus.
Now, just more than 50,000 donors have raised a little more than two-thirds of the cost, BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said.
"We're able to move at this rate because of the support that is coming in," she said. "The two-thirds allows us to cover the construction costs, which we needed to start the building."
And so the walls came tumbling down Tuesday, with Jenkins, other university officials and occasional passers-by surprised by the pace of the demolition, done without explosives.
Work began after 7 a.m., and by 11 a.m. only a small portion of the southeast corner remained standing. That was gone by noon.
Construction workers separated steel, aluminum and bricks into piles. Those materials will be recycled, Jenkins said.
The Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center will be built on the same location, west and across West Campus Drive from the Abraham Smoot Administration Building.
Construction on the Alumni House began in 1961, and the building was dedicated on May 29, 1962.
Alumni Association employees left the building last month and are temporarily housed across campus in the Knight-Mangum Building, next to the Clyde Engineering Building and across South Campus Drive from the former McDonald Health Center.
The new building will have 80,000 square feet. Those interested in donating can do so online at byu.edu/gbhb. Gifts of $25 to $5,000 are matched by the President's Leadership Council at BYU, and Ira and Mary Lou Fulton are providing 5-to-1 matches on student gifts up to $5,000.
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com