If you saw the recent video of the Chinese highrise being built in only 6 days, you will probably appreciate this construction failure. Click link below picture for full story and more pictures

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Workers secure the perimeter of the Alabaster Building for the Thanksgiving holidays. The structure will be razed to make room for a parking garage for Southwest Tennessee Community College students. Chandler Demolition is surgically salvaging the brick.

Crews have started demolition of the 84-year-old Alabaster Building to make room for a parking garage for Southwest Tennessee Community College.

The four-story brick building at 678 Beale is just south of Union.

Its architecture is distinguished by the building's west side, which is diagonally angled to front a railroad spur that crosses Beale Street.

The community college considered adapting the building for a garage, but the expense was too great, said Ron Parr, vice president of financial and administrative services.

"If you look at the big columns inside the building, it would make it awful trying to park, and would limit the number of cars we could put in there," Parr said.

Chandler Demolition this week has been surgically salvaging brick from the structure. Weather permitting, the building should be gone by early February.

The building had been on the market for six years before the school's foundation bought it last year for $925,000 from HPTC LLC.

A three-level, $2.5 million garage should provide a minimum of 300 parking spaces. But plans are tentative and the cost could rise, Parr said.

The start of construction will depend on the college first getting the state's financial support to build an adjacent Nursing, Natural Sciences and Biotechnology Building at 675 Union.

The state has a program that provides funding for community college construction if the college can raise 15 percent of the cost. Southwest has already raised much more than that, $10 million.

But with 13 other community colleges in Tennessee, the funding program is competitive, Parr said. The Tennessee Board of Regents should decide Tuesday which school will get funding, he said.

The lot where the Alabaster Building now stands, about three-fourths of an acre, would initially serve as the staging area for construction of the nursing building, Parr said.

Two or three years may pass before construction starts on the parking garage, he said.

Southwest Tennessee Community College is squeezed for land, making it difficult to expand. The parking garage will likely be built so an academic building can be constructed on top of it in the future, Parr said.

Southwest has about 13,500 students, including nearly 5,000 who attend its Union campus.

Lack of parking has hindered the campus' growth, Parr said.

The new nursing facility, which can double the number of nursing students from 200 to 400, won't succeed without the parking garage, he said.

The school has acquired two parcels on Union for the 54,000-square-foot Nursing, Natural Sciences and Biotechnology Building. One is the site of the former International Auto Sales, 675 Union, and the other is Cecil's Automotive at 683 Union, Parr said.

The school is still negotiating to buy the adjacent BP station at the southwest corner of Union and Myrtle.

"We've got some environmental issues we're trying to resolve," he said.

-- Tom Bailey Jr.: 529-2388

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It seems like just a short few months ago this building was on someone's list of Memphis' abandoned buildings worth saving. I guess parking trumps preservation.