"Golden Key Hotel checks out"

There will be no wrecking ball — much less dynamite — as the Golden Key Hotel checks out of Glendale to make way for a new Nordstrom department store at the Americana at Brand shopping center.

Workers started cautiously taking apart the three-story, 55-room hotel on Colorado Street on Thursday, said Paul Kurzawa, chief operating officer of mall owner Caruso Affiliated.

Workers are using an excavator and hand tools on the hotel; a vacant brick building next door will be dismantled entirely by hand. The goal is to avoid creating a lot of dust and racket, or accidentally whacking any of the Americana's existing buildings, which neighbor the hotel on three sides.

"We are taking out anything not permanently affixed, and then certain walls and then the roof and the rest of the walls," Kurzawa said. "It will be very orderly."

The Golden Key, which was built in 1968, closed at the end of December.