COLUMBUS, Ohio – It’s going to take months longer than expected and more than double the cost to demolish Franklin County Veterans Memorial.
READ MORE: In the Columbus Dispatch
The Franklin County Commissioners learned that Thursday when told that the building’s foundation is supporting part of a miles-long flood wall that protects the neighborhood west of there from potential Scioto River floods.
According to a report Friday morning’s Columbus Dispatch, the commissioners were asked to extend contracts with two companies hired to oversee post-demolition site work before the property is turned over to the Columbus Downtown Development Corp., which will build the Ohio Veterans Memorial and Museum in its place.
The commissioners are expected to approve those contracts next week at a cost of about $500,000. The unexpected additional underground work is estimated to cost another $2.8 million and take several more months to complete. That would bring the total cost for the county to clear the land to about $4.8 million.
County leaders say they knew the project would be bigger than just knocking down the building, which opened on Veterans Day in 1955 and was expanded in 1982.
Downtown Development officials originally had said they wanted to begin construction this spring. But it won’t happen until sometime late this summer because of problems discovered late last year.