Demolition work is scheduled to begin today to make way for an 11-acre waterfront park at the downtown County Administration Center.
Crews are assigned to tear down an office building next to North Harbor Drive and Grape Street housing offices of the county Health and Human Services Agency. The demolition of the J.B. Askew Building -- erected in 1958 and named after a former health director -- is expected to take three months.
Plans for the $44 million waterfront park, scheduled to be finished in two years, include an 830-foot-long fountain and green space for picnics and civic events. A park was included in the original plans for the County Administration Center, which was completed in 1938, but no park was never built.
The two parking lots at the center will be replaced by an underground parking garage and a 500-space lot nearby at Cedar Street and Kettner Boulevard.
