Kevin Reece's 11 News report

The Crowne Plaza Hotel in the Medical Center was reduced to rubble in a matter of seconds Sunday.

It was a part of a plan to make way for development in the area.

By the year 2011, the site will be home to Texas Children’s Hospital Maternity Center.

It will be a 15-floor, 720,000-square foot space that will host an estimated 5,000 births a year.

And it’s just the beginning of a series of major expansion plans there.

“I think it represents an important portion of the expansion that’s going to take place,” Harry Holmes, VP of Public Affairs for the Texas Medical Center, said. “When you put into play a million feet, even including the garage, that’s a big project in anybody’s book.”

The Med Center is already bigger in square footage than the combined downtown areas of El Paso, Fort Worth and San Antonio.