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Demolition Begins Tuesday On Airport Hilton's Parking Garage

DANIA BEACH (CBSMiami) - Demolition crews are scheduled to get to work on Tuesday  tearing down the Airport Hilton's two-story parking garage, according to a spokesman for the Broward County Aviation Department.

The garage and the hotel itself have to go to make way for a new runway at Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Airport officials considered using explosives to knock down the 400 room eight story hotel at Griffin Road and I-95 in Dania Beach but the Federal Aviation Administration nixed that idea, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

"The FAA will not allow us to implode a building that close to the airport runway and in such close proximity to a major interstate," airport spokesman Greg Meyer told the paper. "We can't do any explosions at the site there at all."

Even though the parking garage is coming down, the three decades old hotel will remain open until early April. Crews will then take it down bit by bit. It is scheduled to be completely razed by early June.

It was determined that the garage and hotel had to go because they posed a potential hazard to planes which will use the new eight-thousand foot long south runway which is scheduled to open in September.

The new runway is expected to ease air traffic delays.

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