Today marks the explosive end of the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, a once-proud and efficient medical center that in recent years has come to symbolize blight and neglect.

Specialists will set charges to implode the crumbling, 11-story concrete building Friday morning. Aside from the historic Club Knoll, the hospital is the last structure standing among the nearly 100 military homes, barracks, stores, gyms, warehouses and other mostly wood buildings that dotted the bucolic, tree-shaded base in the East Oakland hills.

The facility was formally decommissioned in 1996 during a wave of base closures around the country. After some fits and starts with another master developer, the federal government sold the 186-acre property at auction in 2005 to SunCal for $100.5 million.