How can I move massive buildings in-game in Minecraft?

Question

Is there some way to move a massive building from underwater to above water in Minecraft? I suspect the answer is pistons, but how would I push the building more than one block? And would the water blocks covering the building stay on top of if after the building is out of water? How would I stop it after it is at surface level?

This will be on a private server, where I am admin. Bukkit will be used, in case someone knows a plugin to do this.

Answer

If you don't mind "cheating", the easiest way would most likely be using MCEdit or WorldEdit. If this building is massive like you say, it would take a very, very long time to move it above ground using pistons. If you really wanted to do this, though, you would put a piston under a block, activate it with a lever, place a block in the new empty space, and repeat. Unfortunately, since you are supposedly underwater, this would be very difficult.

However, I have done testing, and if you were to push a column of blocks up using a piston and one of them is a water source block, the water simply disappears.

Edit: Now that I see you're an admin on a Minecraft server, I'll give you WorldEdit instructions. To use WorldEdit, first install it on your server. Then use the //wand command to give yourself a Wooden Axe. Use this to left-click on the bottom-leftmost block of your building, and right-click on the top-rightmost block. This encloses your building in a "selection". From there, you can //copy and //paste it wherever you please.

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