The former Budget Host Inn building on the west side of Fort Dodge will soon be nothing but a memory.

The vacant hotel at the corner of Kenyon Road and U.S. Highway 169 will be torn down this year.

The Board of Directors of Iowa Central Community College, which owns the property, awarded two contracts Friday for the demolition of the building.

Site Services Inc., of Algona, was hired to remove the asbestos from the building at a cost of $128,650.

Rasch Construction Inc., of Fort Dodge, was hired to demolish the building at a cost of $298,540.

”My goal is to get it down as soon as possible,” college President Dan Kinney said Friday.

He said he expects the demolition to be done before winter.

The site will initially be just a green space, according to Kinney.

The hotel site is immediately west of the college property where its Woodruff Apartments student housing is located.

Iowa Central’s campus is currently hemmed in by U.S. Highway 169, the Fort Museum and Frontier Village and Friendship Haven. The college’s board bought the property in late 2018 to create space for potential future growth.

The property was purchased from Joseph D. McMahon Jr. and Tamara McMahon, of Fort Dodge, for $1,450,000.

The hotel and the Eilers Steakhouse located within it closed in the spring of 2018.