Construction work on the long-awaited Centre City project finally has started.

After months of finalizing purchase agreements and preparing the site of the project, crews on Tuesday began tearing down the Sons of Italy building on Main Street.

The site will soon be where the new Rite Aid Pharmacy will stand.

The store, which will be significantly larger than the current Rite Aid downtown, will join an 80-room Marriott Springhill Suites hotel and a 225-lot parking garage downtown as part of the project estimated to cost more than $18 million.

The demolition of the SOI building will take about a week, according to Art Cordwell, the director of the city redevelopment authority.

Ken Reilly Contracting of Butler is doing the demolition work.

“There's a common wall between the Huntington Bank building and the SOI building,” Cordwell said. “So we'll have to be careful when tearing it down.”

The redevelopment authority will own 40 percent of the hotel, while J.S. Capitol Construction, which is the developer for the entire project, will own 60 percent.

The city and city parking authority will own and manage the parking garage.

But before construction of the buildings can begin, crews must first complete site preparation on the block surrounded by Main, East Jefferson, East Cunningham, and South McKean streets.

Once the SOI building is torn down, crews will fill in the basement of the building and prepare the site for construction. The next step will be to move the overhead utility lines over the block underground.

“We don't want to put new streets in then have to dig them up for utilities,” Cordwell said. “So the next step is to get them underground.”

Electric, phone, and cable lines be moved below the surface to free up development space.

“We're going to clear everything from Jefferson through to our building (on Cunningham Street), where it will go overhead again,” Cordwell said.

Construction of the new Rite Aid is expected to begin in about three weeks, Cordwell said. The store is set to be open in October.

Work on the new hotel and parking garage is expected to start this summer. Both structures will take about a year to build.

Cordwell said it is exciting to see actual physical work begin along the block.

“Everybody is excited,” he said. “I remember when we were starting to question whether this would ever happen. It's nice that it's finally under way.”

Mayor Tom Donaldson is also happy to see the project move along.

“I'm very encouraged progress is going on,” Donaldson said. “I'll be even more encouraged when work begins on the hotel and parking garage.”

Donaldson said the project will help ignite economic development downtown.

“It's a positive for the city,” he said. “Everyone put a lot of effort into this over the years. It's good that it's becoming a reality.”

After years of work on the project, Donaldson said he is perhaps most excited to see the city finally be able to shift its attention to other matters.

“I'm looking forward to moving onto other things,” he said.