The project began in February 2007 when property owners Adam and Dessi Price, inspired by a similar venture in New York City, invited Utah's artists to decorate their abandoned two-story stucco building before it was torn down. Over the next three months some 150 artists treated the building like one big blank canvas, filling every inch of its 42 rooms with paint and assemblages they knew would eventually be destroyed.

The artists ranged from academically trained professionals to young graffiti taggers, lending the building a kaleidoscopic, funhouse effect that enchanted visitors. People stood in line for hours to tour the building after the Prices opened it to the public, for free, last May. Over the span of six days, more than 10,000 people streamed through.

The project energized Salt Lake's artistic community and inspired an exhibition opening in June at the Salt Lake Art Center. More than three dozen 337 Project artists have submitted work for the show, says curator Campbell Gray.

And the Prices have incorporated the 337 Project as a nonprofit organization whose mission will be to support Salt Lake City's community of emerging contemporary artists. The nonprofit's first venture will be a mobile art installation, housed in a truck, that will roam the Salt Lake Valley, bringing art to schools and other folks who rarely see it.

As for the 337 building, it was scheduled to be demolished last summer until finding a workable design for its replacement took longer than expected. Now, the building is set to be torn down Saturday. Price invited all the artists involved with the project to remove their artworks before the demolition, but few took him up on his offer.

"It never crossed my mind to take [my artwork] out," says Edie Roberson, who painted a whimsical, and probably valuable, door with images of a clown, a rabbit and Vincent Van Gogh. "It [the building] has to come down. I mean, that's the whole point."

Hundreds of artists and other folks are expected to drop by the site to watch the demolition. For Adam Price, it will be a bittersweet experience.

"From its inception, the destruction was always an essential part of the art," he says. "But I've loved this building. It's been such a fantastic part of my life. Seeing it go will be both wonderful and sad at the same time."