With the "goodbyes" said and chain-link security fence erected, all that awaits Incarnate Word Academy's 110-year-old downtown school building is the wrecking ball.

Demolition of the three-story brick red building - the last Houston edifice totally designed by famed 19th century Texas architect Nicholas Clayton - will make way for a new, $8.5 million, six-story structure to open for the 2016-2017 school year.

Plans for the building's demolition brought protests from former students and history-minded architects, but leaders of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament, the building's owner, said rehabilitation would have cost at least $300,000 and would not have resulted in a structure adequate to the school's needs.

Sandwiched between modern school buildings on the 600 Crawford Street campus, the doomed building will be the third Clayton-designed structure razed by the nuns since the 1940s. Another Clayton building nearby, a school associated with the Annunciation Catholic Church, was torn down in 1997.

Sister Lauren Beck, president of the teaching order and of the school, founded in 1873, said the decision to demolish was made "in the past eight months."

"We do appreciate that this is an older building, but we have to look at the needs of the school," Beck said. "There is no more land down here and we are landlocked. While we loved having some of the old and some of the new, we decided that the building could not drive the mission of the school. The needs of the school come first."

Last week, Beck said, former students were invited to visit the building for a final time. Its replacement will include a "history wall" of photos and text commemorating the soon-to-be-razed building.

'It's a terrible shame'

Kate McDonald, a 1969 graduate of the all-girls high school and a leader of the anti-demolition campaign, did not attend the open house. "I was down for the St. Patrick's Day parade, and I didn't see too many people going in," she said. "For those who object, what was the point? We weren't having any impact. Frankly, the sisters don't care. They do what they want to do. I could wring my hands, but I'll just smile and nod and move on. I think it's a terrible shame."

McDonald said more than 1,200 people signed her Internet petition to save the building. "We started asking questions," McDonald said, "and you'd get professional double-talk, chirpy and smiling and saying nothing … 'Thank you for your opinion. We appreciate your input.' We were told there was no decision over and over and then there was a decision and it seems the building will be gone in seconds."

The work of the Irish-born Clayton (1840-1916) was "inventive and eclectic," said University of Houston adjunct architecture professor Drexel Turner, co-author of "Clayton's Galveston: The Architecture of Nicholas J. Clayton and His Contemporaries," published by the Texas A&M University Press. "It had a real spirit to it. Clayton was certainly one of the most distinguished Texas architects of the 19th century."

Rice University architectural historian Stephen Fox said Clayton's major buildings, including Galveston's Bishop's Palace and "Old Red," the University of Texas Medical Branch's administration building, are "the epitome of late-19th century architectural exuberance."

Clayton designed three buildings for the Houston school: a convent, razed in the 1940s; an auditorium, which came down in the 1970s; and the current imperiled classroom building.

Other Texas buildings

Clayton's work is well-represented in Texas and Louisiana, Fox said, but, after the demolition, only Annunciation Catholic Church will remain in Houston. Annunciation opened in 1871, but, over an 11-year-period beginning in 1884, Clayton was commissioned to reconstruct and expand the building.

Turner expressed exasperation with the nuns' decision. "That's the way things are done in this town," he said, alluding to Houston's reputation for giving little consideration to its historic buildings. "It's really sad. Houston needs all the history it can get."

"There's always an alternative to demolishing an old building with character and pedigree," Turner argued. "There's plenty of room everywhere in Houston," he said. "Why does it always come down to taking away something that has real connection with the past. It's gratuitous."

Nuns saw few options

Beck, though, said the academy is determined to remain in downtown Houston and had few alternatives to demolition.

Since the 1980s, she said, the building was used to lodge members of the religious order.

By the time cracks were found in the structure two years ago, she said, only two nuns were still living in it.

Initially planning to repair the building, school officials hired a contractor who estimated $11,000 in fixes would be needed, Beck said. Then the contractor walked away from the job, leaving the project unfinished. School officials then commissioned a $77,000 engineering assessment. "They told us that what we saw was just the tip of the iceberg," she said. "Repairs would cost at least $300,000 and possibly more."

An appraisal of the structure by architects, she said, indicated that, once repaired, the building could be retrofitted with no more than six classrooms - a number that school officials deemed insufficient.

Beck said Incarnate Word's enrollment last year increased by 10 percent to 306 students. The school plans to cap future enrollment at 350, she said.

David Bush, deputy director of Preservation Houston, said the Texas Historical Commission erected a marker at the academy in 1973 to commemorate its 100th anniversary. That measure, however, does not protect the remaining old building from demolition.

The building also is not a designated city of Houston protected landmark, Bush said. Such designation can guard a historic building from unauthorized demolition, but the protection must be sought by the property's owner.

Incarnate Word Academy is the oldest Catholic school in Houston.