[FONT=Verdana]The crane knocks holes in the University Centre Hotel on Monday. The site will house a new cancer hospital.

For weeks, the University Centre Hotel in Gainesville, FL has stood like an aging debutante, stripped clean of paint and bereft of furnishings.

In its prime, the 183-room hotel built in 1986 was the place to be for parties and proms. Fiddler's, the 11th-floor restaurant, offered the city's finest sunset views.

On Monday, the landmark had one last date. This time, it was with a wrecking ball.

Demolition crews from Pece of Mind Disposal have gutted the hotel's interior, piling up all the reusable and recyclable goods. Some 20 truckloads of steel have already been hauled to away for recycling, along with more than 100 loads of concrete from what was once the hotel's parking garage. The white plastic foam that coated the exterior walls has been removed, exposing bare, gray concrete block.

At mid-morning, an operator climbed into the cab of a 100-ton crane at the rear of the hotel. The 180-foot boom hoisted a 4,000-pound wrecking ball into position, and the crane operator took aim at a spot about eight stories up.

The first few smacks seemed to do little damage, and onlookers who'd been expecting a big bang uncovered their ears. About 10 swings later, the ball had poked several holes in the exterior wall when a problem with the crane's clutch brought work to a halt.

For the University Centre, the reprieve was only temporary. By mid-afternoon, the crane was back in action.

Steve Pece, owner of the demolition company, said the job will take two or three weeks. Once the exterior wall has been breached, he said, the floors above would collapse, bringing the structure down bit by bit. Later this week, he'll move the crane to the front of the property, and the demolition will be visible from Archer Road.

Brad Pollitt, Shands vice president of facilities, was on hand for the start of the knockdown Monday.

Pollitt said once the building is down, there won't be much activity on the site except for cleanup. The concrete from the building will be ground up and sold on site. Because of the permitting process, work on pouring the foundation for the new hospital won't start until late December or early January, Pollitt said.

All in all, he said, the project has gone remarkably fast.

"It has only been seven months, and once these guys got onboard to do the deconstruction, it has been moving right along," Pollitt said.

The new cancer hospital will have private beds for a variety of patients, including those receiving diagnostic and therapeutic oncology services.

Construction is expected to be complete in 2009.[/FONT]