LIMA, OH (WLIO) - Motorists on Market Street may notice some demolition at Mercy Health St. Rita's as one of their buildings is coming down.
The 718 building is coming down floor by floor. The medical center is looking toward the future and costs to maintain the 60-year-old building was increasing. The structure once held the St. Rita's School of Nursing with the last class graduating in 1971. Fifty-five classes went through the program living in the building. Many came back to a reception to see their old school one last time.
"When we knew we were going to tear the building down, we did host day welcome reception for anybody who was still in the community who wanted to come back and say goodbye. We had a great turnout. Lots of nurses came back and reminisced about the good old days when they lived here," said Cory Werts, chief nursing officer.
The demolition is interesting as it is coming down floor by floor. Most of the debris goes out the east side of the building and is loaded into dump trucks as soon as it comes out.
"It's coming down layer by layer. So we're trying to recycle everything that we can. And we're trying to prevent any debris from falling into Market Street and then on the backside of the building would be our MRI suites and so we want to obviously want to protect those and keep any debris from falling there as well," explained Willow Lowery, director of project management.
The auxiliary conference room will remain. Full demolition should be complete by the fall and the area will be seeded to create a green space. Lowery says they will take time to decide if there will be any expansion that would be done in that space.
