The process of uprooting a tree nearly as old as the United States is underway on the University of Michigan's campus.

A crew recently began excavating the 65-foot-tall legacy bur oak tree outside of the Ross School of Business. The tree is estimated to be nearly five feet in diameter and more than 200 years old.

The tree is being moved to make way for the $135 million addition to the business school. The plan is to move it from its place in a courtyard at the north side of the Ross complex, facing the School of Education, to a lawn area off Tappan Street, just outside the main entrance of the complex.

The entire relocation process is expected to cost upward of $400,000 and was factored into the overall cost of the school's project, which is funded by donors.

Workers at the scene said they would be working for weeks to uproot the massive tree, and university spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said the move wouldn't take place until fall. The exact date is unknown.

Workers dug a four-foot-wide trench and will place steel beams more than four feet below the tree's base. Lifting devices will be used break the the roots from the ground in order for it to be unearthed. The tree will then be loaded onto a flat bed and transferred less than a football field's distance away from its current location.

Jenny Cooper, a graduate student at the business school and U-M's School of Natural Resources, is one of 291 students, faculty and staff who signed a petition urging the school to save the tree.

"As I see it, the rationale for preserving the (legacy bur oak) tree is about history, tradition, pride and respect," she told The Ann Arbor News in a previous interview. "The tree is a symbol of strength and resilience and far predates the university as part of the landscape."

Fitzgerald said consultants who have visited the campus estimate the tree would have a 70- to 80-percent chance of survival when it's replanted.