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GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — After a year's delay, North Carolina A&T State University has started demolishing its student center to make way for a new $90 million facility scheduled to open in three years.
Demolition of the Memorial Student Union began Tuesday, the News & Record of Greensboro (http://bit.ly/1Ft6k5d) reports.
During a short ceremony, Chancellor Harold Martin and others reminisced about the old student union. Martin called Tuesday "a sad moment, but ... a joyous occasion as well" because the university is tearing down a building that served the campus for nearly 50 years, but joyous because A&T has high hopes for the new building.
The original section of the building opened in 1967 when A&T had about 4,000 students.
A&T closed the student union a year ago in anticipation that construction would start last fall.
The new student center will be more than twice as big as the current building and have amenities including a bookstore, food court and a new ballroom that will seat as many as 700 people. The new facility won't open until 2018, a year later than anticipated.
The university also has raised student fees to $250 per student this year to cover construction costs. Next year the extra fee will be $400.
After the ceremony, students and employees wrote messages on the pillars outside the entrance.
"My first memory of A&T was the union," 2015 graduate Allen Nolley wrote, "and it will surely be missed."
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Information from: News & Record, http://www.news-record.com
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