Key Bank tower comes down

Key Bank tower implosion video 1

Key Bank tower implosion video 2

Boom ... boom ... boom, then a pause, and finally, a skyscraper that has been part of the Salt Lake City skyline for almost 30 years met its end early this morning.

At 6:38 a.m., in the soft early morning light under with dark clouds blanketing much of the Salt Lake Valley's sky, the former Key Bank tower, at 50 S. Main, came crashing down today to the oohs and ahs of hundreds of employees from Key Bank and other former tenants watching from surrounding office buildings.

"It's bittersweet," said Julie Nelson, a 31-year employee of Key Bank watching from the new Key Bank tower, a block to the east. "It was great to watch, but it's sad to see it go."

Nelson remembers the day in August 1980 when the tower celebrated its grand opening. She was pregnant with her first daughter

In the minutes leading up to the implosion, the building stood quietly as onlookers watched and waited. Then, without any warning, the silence was broken by a sequence of nine blasts that rattled windows and shook the ground. About three seconds later, the tower collapsed in on itself, falling slightly to the southwest just as demolition planners had hoped.

In the days before the implosion, officials said the chief threat to the implosion plans was weather, as lightning or extreme winds could potentially force a postponement. The implosion came about seven minutes ahead of schedule to prevent looming lightning flashes on the horizon from posing a risk, and a steady but gentle breeze was seen as likely to help the dust clear more quickly.

The 20-story tower was built in the late 1970s and, until recently, housed the offices of Key Bank as well as several law firms, legal support services and other companies. It fell today to make way for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' City Creek Center development.

The huge dust cloud drifted west leaving behind an approximately 40-foot-high heap of rubble in the building's former footprint — 36,000 tons of steel, concrete and glass, most of which will be hauled off and recycled.

Ross Kendell, a former Key Bank president from 1987 to 1995, watched the implosion with "some very real sadness." His office for 15 years was at the top of the 290-foot building, with views of the state Capitol, Ensign Peak, Temple Square, the University of Utah and the Wasatch Mountains. "In my view, it was the finest office in town. I was very biased."

The falling of the tower marks the end of an era for the bank.

"I felt that the tower played a very important part in helping establish our bank as one of the major banks in the Salt Lake City and Utah market," he said.