Demolition of LifeWay tower goes 'perfectly'

A prominent piece of Nashville history fell loud and hard Saturday, but the implosion of the LifeWay Draper Tower went as planned.

"Everything went 100 percent perfect," said Steve Pettigrew, the man in charge of the implosion. "In downtown urban areas where you have glass and utilities sometimes, a lot of structure there...we just inspected it and everything looks great."

Todd Rice, 46, of Bellevue, and his 13-year-old son, Caleb, were among many onlookers who watched the tower crumble outside the 700-foot exclusion zone.

The tower crumbled in sections after a series of loud bangs.

"The novelty of watching a building get imploded I think brought us out here," Todd Rice said. "The biggest surprise to me was how long after the explosions you heard that the building was still standing, and there was this fairly significant delay before it really started to kind of fall down, which kind of surprised me."

“The building fell from one side then it just fell like dominoes basically,” said Leonard Zonn, 10, of East Nashville.

The only unexpected part of the demolition was the man who ultimately pushed the buttons to initiate the approximate 600 pounds of explosives used to bring down the LifeWay building.

Dave Santerelli, director of construction and development for Southwest Value Partners, which purchased the property and buildings that will make up Nashville Yards, was coaxed to the command post when he got a text to get there as soon as possible. There, Santerelli was told he'd be pushing the buttons for the implosion.

"I was afraid to take my fingers off those buttons...don't move that thumb — I didn't and I was froze," Santerelli said. "So history goes away so we can build a new future is the only thing I could think through my mind..."

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The LifeWay Draper Tower demolition helps make way for a 15-acre mixed-use development called Nashville Yards.

The Draper Tower space will eventually be replaced by a 380-unit residential building fronted with new green space, two office buildings with 700,000 square feet of space and approximately 90,000 square feet of retail.

"It was just amazing because that has been such a mainstay of our Broadway view for so long so to see it come down so quickly with a cloud of dust is just extraordinary, you don't see that everyday," said Andrea Zonn, Leonard Zonn's mother. 

Nashville Yards was described as "an opportunity," by Metro Councilman Freddie O'Connell, but he acknowledged tension between downtown development and preservation.

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O'Connell was among those attending a groundbreaking ceremony held around the implosion at Union Station for a 23-story, 591-room Hyatt Regency hotel planned for 10th and Broadway where the former LifeWay Christian Store once operated that is part of Nashville Yards.

"If we look forward and there are things we want to be more particular about preserving — saving — how do we do that, what are those tools, what are those opportunities?" O'Connell said.  "I think this prompts us to consider that as well."

Reach Andy Humbles at ahumbles@tennessean.com or 615-726-5939 and on Twitter @ AndyHumbles.