The Intel building – downtown’s skeletal concrete monument to the high-tech boom and bust – will come crashing down as scheduled.
City and federal officials have stopped talks to try to stall the demolition of the building at Fifth Street and San Antonio from inplosion on Feb. 25.
Earlier this week, Mayor Will Wynn said he would try to save the structure.
The U.S government, which now owns the prime downtown property, plans to build a new $65 million federal courthouse.
If a developer had bought the property from the government, then the city would have collected taxes on any new more lucrative development.
But in a meeting with federal judges on Thursday morning, Wynn learned the city would risk not getting a new courthouse for years to come if the demolition was stalled.
Demolition crews who are preparing the site say they’ll begin drilling holes in the concrete pillars to imbed the dynamite on Friday morning. They say once even one hole is drilled, the building becomes structurally unsound.
