ENKA, N.C. (828newsNOW) – A small group of onlookers stared in awe on Thursday as the hulking but obsolete Haynes Tower building was being reduced to mounds of twisted metal, bricks and other debris on A-B Tech’s Enka campus.

Candler resident Lisa Schwartz was there, taking cell phone video from just outside a nearby chain link fence.

“I’ve been watching the site for a few weeks now, wondering when they’re going to take it down, and yesterday coming home, I saw that they had already started,” she said. “So today after the rain let up, I came out to watch this…”

LONG-VACANT BUILDING AT A-B TECH’S ENKA CAMPUS READY TO BE RAZED

The oddly-shaped, multi-story building once housed classrooms for continuing education and other programs at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College in Enka, but it has been vacant since mid-2015. Officials determined it would cost way too much money to modernize and convert the building for other uses, so it was approved for demolition in 2022.

This spring, Buncombe County Commissioners approved a $648,990 contract with contractor D.H. Griffin for demolition, including removal of hazardous materials, disconnection of utilities, separation of recyclable materials and re-grading of the land.

Schwartz said she has been watching the slow progress over recent weeks. “They’ve been going inside, scavenging, salvaging things, and so it seemed to go real slow for the first few weeks,” she said. “But yesterday, bam! The middle of the building came down while I did not have my eyes on it.”

Back in March 2024, the long-vacant Haynes Tower building at A-B Tech’s Enka campus was scheduled for demolition with the awarding of a contract to D.H. Griffin.
Lisa Schwartz of Candler has been closely watching progress of the demolition for weeks.
A giant excavator picks apart the building’s guts.
A giant excavator picks apart the building’s guts.
A worker oversees an area where twisted metal girders were being sorted for recycling.
Fencing keeps curiosity seekers at a safe distance.
Where once there were classrooms, now there is open sky.
Fencing keeps curiosity seekers at a distance.
Within a matter of hours, the view from the nearby roadway drastically changed.
The rubble.

By Wednesday morning, “It looked like a building whose guts were spilling out the side,” Schwartz said. “And then this morning, those little, uhm, whatever those smaller construction machines are, were like dinosaurs, pulling the guts out. It’s quite a sight.”

“It probably was interesting to see a building go up, and I think it’s interesting to see them come down and if it wasn’t any kind of disaster, no lives were lost. You get to kind of get to enjoy the spectacle without feeling like anybody is in danger.”

As various curiosity seekers came and went, Schwartz remained, watching the center of the building get picked apart by excavators.

“This was most recently used, I guess, as classrooms,” she said. “I think I see a blackboard in there. How many formulas and problems were written on that board?”

Work to completely level and reclaim the site is expected to continue for weeks.