After 96 years, the former Palace Theater is being demolished to make way for a new project.

The 8,000-square-foot building in Lansford was a theater and a restaurant over its life span, but in recent years had sat abandoned.Developer Joe Bennett has plans to build a health care facility on the site.A contractor working on the project, Frank A. Martin, received a demolition permit late last week, according to an employee with the borough’s third-party building code official, Lehigh Valley Inspection Services.In order to receive the permit, the contractor had to get certification from the state Department of Environmental Protection that all asbestos had been safely removed from the building.The debris from the demolition is slated to be dumped on coal land owned by BET Investments Inc.BET owns the former LC&N coal mining property in and around the Panther Valley.The fill will be used by BET as part of its efforts to reclaim former mine property, according to a permit filed by the contractor.According to Steve Meylach of LVIS, the contractor has not provided a date that the work will be finished.Bennett first proposed taking down the former theater in February.At the time, borough council granted his request to dump the debris from the property on a piece of mine land that they owned.However the borough had to rescind that offer.Bennett came back to borough council in November and announced that he had made a deal with BET to dispose of the debris.