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PROVO, Utah (AP) -- A campus icon at Brigham Young University soon will be demolished.
Each of the buildings in the Deseret Towers residence hall complex will be torn down by June. The buildings have housed tens of thousands of students since they were first built in the 1960s.
Two buildings in the complex were torn down in December 2006. On Friday, the university said it will tear down the remaining five buildings that have housed thousands of summer campers, students, pizza parties and budding romances.
Work will begin on the demolition in mid-November and continue through June.
BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said the towers will be torn down with a wrecking ball rather than imploded. Bryce Bird, planning branch manager with the state division of air quality, said the school requested a variance from the air quality board to implode the buildings when it tore down the two towers last year. The school was denied.
Sophomore Steven Foote, who lived in the towers, said he is disappointed they're coming down. He had hoped his younger brother and perhaps his children would get to live in the towers.
"It was nice because it was just a good, fun environment," Foote said.
The towers were home to tens of thousands of students, sports campers and Especially For Youth participants. The cafeteria has served about 2 million meals. Last year, the remaining five towers were home to 1,300 students.
Most of the towers were built in the 1960s and are deteriorating. They've never had any major renovations. The school has replaced only the carpet, smoke alarms, light fixtures and beds. The school says students also prefer apartment-style, on-campus housing than the dormitory housing of Deseret Towers.
The school doesn't have a plan for what will replace the towers.
"We are just closely judging our housing options and the desires of the students right now," Jenkins said.
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Information from: The Daily Herald
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
