Lineup change for Aud demolition
Before the first wrecking ball has swung, there’s been a big change in plans for demolition of Buffalo’s Memorial Auditorium.
Ontario Specialty Contracting, the Buffalo firm which submitted the low bid for the Aud razing, has bowed out of the project. A West Seneca firm, DEMCO Inc., will take its place and is expected to begin tearing down the sports arena in January.
Ontario Specialty had asked the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. to release it from the project or renegotiate the demolition contract, citing the tumbling price of scrap steel.
The harbor agency released the firm from its agreement and offered the job to Titan Wrecking and Environmental, of Buffalo, the second lowest bidder, which declined the work due to the faltering scrap steel market.
DEMCO, which submitted the third lowest bid, agreed to accept the project award, according to Jordan A. Levy, chairman of the harbor development agency.
“The three low bidders came in about $200,000 of each other, so to have DEMCO step in won’t be an outrageous increase,” Levy said. “And remember, our original estimates for demolition were around $4 million.”
A key factor in the lower-than- expected bids was the price of scrap steel, which stood at historic highs that exceeded $900 a gross tom in September when bids were formulated. The Aud contains some 5,000 tons of harvestable steel, making the scrap price a critical variable.
Unfortunately, by the end of October, the scrap steel market crashed, and prices plunged into the $50 to $70 per ton range.
Ontario Specialty’s low bid for the general demolition, plus salvaging architectural elements from the building’s exterior totaled $1,489,078. Titan submitted a $1,637,000 bid for the same work.
DEMCO’s bid for demolition and the architectural salvage totals $1,743,000 — $253,922 above Ontario Specialty’s.
A local company with a national resume, DEMCO is no stranger to knocking down sports landmarks. In recent years, it has demolished Cleveland Stadium and the Miami Orange Bowl.
DEMCO — which stands for Decommissioning & Environmental Management Company — also has extensive experience removing nuclear and petrochemical facilities.
Among its large-scale Buffalo area projects, it tore down a General Motors foundry and plant in the Town of Tonawanda in the 1990s.
Levy said the harbor board will likely meet in a special session next week to formally award the Aud project to DEMCO and it will take about a month for the contract to be reviewed by the Empire State Development Corp.
“They should be at work on the Aud in January at the latest and be done by late spring, which doesn’t delay us at all,” Levy added.
The Aud is coming down as part of the $500 million Canalside redevelopment project, which includes a Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World store on the area block, as well as a new Great Lakes-themed museum and a public plaza with canal water features running through it.
Construction on the Aud site is expected to begin next fall with completion in 2010.
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