Jan. 03--It would have been a real blast -- and a different form of mayhem for Interstate 95 drivers -- to blow up the Airport Hilton, which must be destroyed to make way for a new runway at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
"It would be dramatic," conceded airport spokesman Greg Meyer. "We would have liked to have done that."
But the Federal Aviation Administration put the kibosh on any explosive high jinks at the hotel, which has towered over the interstate just north of Griffin Road for nearly three decades.
"The FAA will not allow us to implode a building that close to the airport runway and in such close proximity to a major interstate," Meyer said. "We can't do any explosions at the site there at all."
So bulldozers, front end loaders and other smoke-belching heavyweight machines will claw down the structure. They'll cut their teeth first on the Hilton's two-story parking garage, a separate building at the hotel's north side. The demolition of the 465-space structure will occur sometime between Saturday and Tuesday, once workers get final permits in hand.
"They're going to go in there and pull it down," Meyer said.
Demolition of the hotel itself will be delayed. The 400-room, golden-hued structure will continue hosting guests until early April, when the heavy equipment monsters will begin tearing it down. "We did this to give the hotel as much opportunity to stay in business as possible," Meyer said.
The hotel, in Dania Beach, is scheduled to be completely razed by early June, with the site filled and sodded by August.
The landmark hotel's eight stories rise along the flight path for the new $791 million runway now under construction at the airport and pose a potential hazard to arriving and departing planes. The new 8,000-foot-long airstrip, north of the Hilton, is scheduled to open in September. Designed to accommodate more air traffic, it will run east-west, parallel to the existing "main" runway, and soar six stories over U.S. 1 and the Florida East Coast Railway tracks.
The county recently bought the Hilton for $62 million and hired The BG Group to demolish the building for $2,091,172. County officials said the purchase costs will be paid through airport revenues, not tax dollars.
Efforts to contact the hotel's owner, Ft Lauderdale Owner LLC, were unsuccessful.
Some marina properties along Griffin Road near the airport are also hindrances to flight paths and will be sacrificed to the wrecking ball as well.
"Everything is on target, everything is as it should be," Meyer said.
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