NEW ORLEANS — More than six months after the half-finished Hard Rock Hotel collapsed, the partly crumbled 18-story structure remains unstable, unsafe and at the center of an ongoing battle between the city and the building’s owner about the best way to bring it down.
First, the property owner, 1031 Canal Development LLC, wanted to hire a demolition contractor the city didn’t like. Then, the city wanted a more expensive implosion by the same demolition company that had used targeted explosions to take down the tower cranes that teetered dangerously over the building.
After months of tense negotiations, the city’s preferred contractor, North Carolina-based D.H. Griffin, signed a contract with 1031 Canal, but it fell apart last month because Griffin could only muster $22 million in insurance for the job, not the $50 million required by the contract.
The city complained that 1031 Canal and its owner Mohan Kailas were creating the delays. The two sides fought over deadlines and details in documents filed in Civil District Court, where Judge Kern Reese had ordered all evidence at the collapse site preserved.
Friday brought what looked like a breakthrough when 1031 Canal filed a formal demolition plan with the city, stamped by engineers.
It was supposed to be an important milestone, but new documents this week suggest the dispute with over how to demolish the collapsed structure is far from over.
Three weeks ago, 1031 Canal hired a new contractor, Kolb Grading, from Missouri. Kolb was hired to do a traditional demolition, not an implosion. Coincidentally, Kolb and its subcontractor purchased the same amount of insurance, $22 million, as Griffin had managed to get, but for what’s expected to be a less risky project.
The latest plan also includes demolishing three smaller structures next door to the Hard Rock site.
Another encouraging sign came Monday, when City Attorney Sunni LeBeouf wrote a letter to Civil Court Judge Kern Reese, encouraging him to allow the demolition to move forward at a hearing coming up this Thursday.
But there was a caveat: LeBeouf asked the judge to leave out any mention of Kolb Grading or any specific demolition method. LeBeouf said the city wants those details to be at the city’s discretion, to adjust quickly in case a new roadblock arises.
That set off a new spat. A letter from 1031 Canal’s attorney on Tuesday ascribes another motive to the city’s conditional approval. Attorney Lori Mince wrote the developers are ready to negotiate the city’s approval of their demolition permit in good faith, but they fear the city is on “a continued quest … to have the building imploded by its chosen contractor, D.H. Griffin.”
Mince’s letter accuses the city of engaging in “bad faith delay tactics” to help its chosen contractor.
At the same time, 1031 Canal filed a new motion in court Tuesday, asking Judge Reese to block the city from enforcing a deadline for the developers to begin demolition next week. That motion also disputes a $5 million bond the city ordered at a Code Enforcement hearing, calling the proceeding “farcical.”
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