New Haven Independent

City officials said paperwork was filed Tuesday ending negotiations with demolition contractor Stamford Wrecking Co. over who would pay for unanticipated engineering costs of bringing down the New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

To pay for the final contract, the city will bond out an extra $600,000.

Stamford Wrecking Co. originally won a $5 million bid in 2005 to do the demo work. The demo has been delayed while earthen mounds and tires were constructed to protect underground electric wires from the blow of the falling behemoth, racking up cost overruns topping a million dollars.

In recent months, the city has been negotiating with Stamford Wrecking over who pays for the cost overruns, and who gets the profits from the sale of recycled steel. Some of the cost overruns were paid for by a half-million dollar contingency fund, said economic development chief Kelly Murphy.

According to the deal signed Tuesday, the city will end up paying Stamford Wrecking an extra $550,000 to make up for increased costs accrued to protect subterranean utilities. Part of that figure comes from an agreement to let Stamford Wrecking will reap all the profits from the steel, instead of splitting profits with the city as originally planned.

To further ease costs, the city has agreed to reduce the amount of work to be done — fewer onsite drains will be built, and the company will not pave a parking lot as previously planned, according to Deputy Economic Development Director Tony Bialecki. That work, which had totaled $200,000, may have to be done at a later date by someone else, he said.

Utilities AT&T and United Illuminating, who withheld approval until they deemed the demo suitable, have also signed off on the project.

The city plans to develop the Coliseum site a part of the greater Gateway Downtown Development Project. Proposed replacements are the new Long Wharf Theatre, retail, affordable and market-rate housing, and hotel and conference center facilities.