Demolition of the Inn at Temple Square hit a visible new milestone Monday as the exterior walls started to come down — walls that you could own a piece of.

The building is the first of many that will come down for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' City Creek Center, a 20-acre mixed-use development expected to be finished in 2011.

Work on tearing the building down began in late November, as crews started removing windows, demolishing the roof and pulling walls down from the inside out. But Monday morning, a large excavator claw pulled down the first exterior wall.

Mark Gibbons, president of the church's real-estate arm, said the work "marks the next phase ... a more visible, tangible demolition effort."

The inn was built in 1931 as the Hotel Temple Square. Its renovation into the cozier Inn at Temple Square 16 years ago made it a popular destination for honeymooners, celebrities and other visitors who wanted to make memories in its Victorian-style rooms and restaurant, Passages.

And Gibbons announced Monday that 1,000 people will be able to keep a concrete reminder to accompany their nostalgia.

Saturday morning, the first 1,000 people at the center court of the ZCMI Center mall will receive a free brick from the inn.

Crews with Okland Construction, which is handling all the work on the Crossroads Plaza block, likely will continue to demolish the inn through mid-January, City Creek Center spokesman Dave Smith said. About 80 percent of the concrete, brick, steel and other material from the inn will be recycled or reused.

Next to come down will be the Crossroads parking structure, likely in January. Demolition will move roughly east across the block, ending with the implosion of the Key Bank Tower, probably sometime in summer 2007, Smith said.

---

E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com