GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The University of Florida has begun building a third home for its nocturnal friends across from Lake Alice.

The site, a popular Gainesville attraction, is home to about 250,000 bats and brings crowds in the evenings to see bats hit the town for the night in search of food.

The Gainesville Sun reports (http://bit.ly/2iI0x8t) school officials say the new home is being built in hopes of getting bats to transfer from the originally constructed bat house to the newer digs, which will have the same barn design.

The original bat house, built in 1991, will be demolished later.

In 2009, the original bat house collapsed, as about 30 bystanders waited for the bats to disperse. About 100 bats, mostly the Brazilian free-tailed species, were killed by the collapse.

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Information from: The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun, http://www.gainesvillesun.com