After a short delay, an iconic downtown Nashville tower will be imploded on Saturday morning, sending off the former LifeWay office known for its monumental embedded cross.
The 12-story building on Broadway will be cleared to make way for the billion-dollar Nashville Yards development. In addition to a new hotel, the former LifeWay campus — where Bibles and Baptist Sunday School materials had been printed — is also targeted for as many as 1,200 apartments, plus restaurants and entertainment.
And the demolition spectacle, easily the city’s largest implosion in decades, will likely draw onlookers.
Among them will be the team that’s developing the property. They’re starting Saturday morning with a private groundbreaking for the new Hyatt Regency hotel that’s coming to the site — but because of the implosion, even that will be different than usual, scheduled to take place at a safer
indoor location nearby.
From there, the developers and officials will be able to watch live, as well as on screens that will display real-time footage from aerial drones.
The implosion is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Saturday and will require a 700-foot perimeter and a ring of road closures, including a stretch of Broadway and several cross streets.