Demolition on the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau has begun as crews make way for a new hotel on the corner of E. Huron and N. Ashley streets on Monday, July 14, 2014. Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor News

Construction crews started demolition of the former Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (AAACVB) at the northeast corner of Huron and Ashley streets at 2:15 p.m. Monday. The neighboring Greyhound bus depot building will also be torn down. Demolition will last several days.

The demolition marks the beginning stages of a multi-million development by Ann Arbor-based First Martin Corporation that will bring a 110-room Residence Inn by Marriott to downtown in Sept. 2015. replaced with a 177,180-square-foot building containing 181 apartments with 415 bedrooms.

The project — which won approval from Ann Arbor City Council in November — includes 70 underground parking spaces, a fitness center, a management office and 121 bicycle parking spaces. There will be driveways off both Huron and Washington streets to different levels of the parking structure.

City of Ann Arbor Planner Alexis DiLeo said the building that houses the AAACVB was originally built as a gas station in 1937, while the bus depot was dedicated in 1940 as the Eastern Michigan Motorbus Terminal and has operated continuously as a bus station ever since.

The Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau relocated one block down the street to 315 W. Huron St. St. 340, inside Arbor Atrium. Greyhound moved to Fourth Avenue near the Blake Transit Center.

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