Community Mercy Health Partners has begun the process of demolishing the former Community Hospital.

Crews currently are salvaging any remaining materials inside the 80-year-old building and will begin remediation work — including asbestos removal — in the next few weeks.

Springfield City Manager Jim Bodenmiller said the city might be interested in acquiring the site for future economic development purposes, if it were properly cleared and backfilled. The city doesn’t have a specific reuse identified for the 20-acre site.

“We’ve had initial discussions with the hospital along those lines,” Bodenmiller said. “We’ve haven’t worked out any specific details or agreements on that.”

Hospital administrators are in the process of deciding what will happen to the site once the hospital is demolished.

“There’s no other movement on that at this point, but perhaps as the building comes down or is completed, more can happen with that,” Lamb said. “There’s not any interest in it as it currently sits. If there’s a clean slate, hopefully, there will be more interest.”

Equipment has been on site for several weeks and physical demolition is expected to be in December. Razing the building will take about six months, likely wrapping up in May. The former Community Hospital School of Nursing will also be torn down during the demolition.

“It’s a long process and you do different phases of the building at different times,” Lamb said.

Community Hospital closed Nov. 13, 2011, the same day that the new $235 million Springfield Regional Medical Center opened downtown near Buck Creek. Hospital administrators estimated last year it would cost about $2 million a year to maintain the empty campuses of both Community Hospital and Mercy Medical Center.

No demolition or anything else is currently planned for the former Mercy Medical Center site.

“We’re taking one building at a time right now,” Lamb said.

Lamb wouldn’t disclose the total cost of demolition, but hospital officials have said it is less than the $6 million to $9 million originally estimated by hospital staff when Community Hospital closed last November.

Lamb said he believes neighbors who drive past the building every day will be happy to see demolition begin. The city had received complaints about high grass and weeds at the facility, which had also been tagged with graffiti.

Harvey Bank of the Historic East High Street Neighborhood Association said neighbors have mixed feelings about the demolition. He called the hospital “a beautiful building, which has outlived its usefulness,” similar to the Crowell-Collier building downtown.

“The main thing is, can it be replaced with something that will give a sense of pride to the neighborhood?” Bank said. “That’s the main thing. We want something more than a strip mall.”

Bank said the hospital has kept the neighborhood in the dark as far as future plans for the old hospital are concerned. He hopes the land can be used for something that contributes to the neighborhood.

“It leaves a huge scar in the landscape of Springfield,” Bank said. “It’s something that everybody knows. We’re very sorry to see it go.”

Bodenmiller called the demolition a mixed blessing. He hopes the site can be used for something positive down the road.

“It’s a facility with considerable history in Springfield, but has no current or future uses,” Bodenmiller said. “Ultimately, I think it makes sense to move forward with the demolition and do so, which better fits with the neighborhoods in the future, even though it may be some time before it’s remarketed or repurposed.”