Audio By Carbonatix
Every few weeks, it seems, it gets a whole more expensive to tear down Reunion Arena, which, as many Friends of Unfair Park have pointed out, now looks like the world’s largest, grooviest coffee table. (It has joined Traveling Man as locals’ latest favorite photo op.) Originally, council approved paying Austin-based A&R Demolition $2,089,000 to raze Reunion. But in June, wuh-oh: “A&R Demolition has found an insulation membrane (non-asbestos) covering the concrete masonry ring wall along the upper level,” which, at the time, just meant there’d be no implosion, so sorry. Two months later, the council approved writing A&R another check for $49,800 to tend to the “unforeseen” problem.
Turns out, that wasn’t nearly enough: The council on Wednesday will approve a second change order that ups A&R’s payday another $460,000, bringing the grand total of the Reunion adios to $3,059,847. And what will A&R do for the extra half mil? This, according to the addendum:
The contractor will excavate, provide and install temporary shoring, coordinate access to the outside surface of the retaining wall for removal of waterproofing mastic in four phases, and re-compact soil. The contractor will stockpile and compact backfill materials and fill as specified in compacted lifts. The contractor will also abate the mastic, remove and inspect the retaining wall prior to the concrete wall being crushed for fill material, and will be required to remain on site as specified.
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Which means that Reunion’s remains will remains there till, oh, March 2010. At least, that’s the latest guesstimate. After the jump, anyone recall when MTV broadcast R.E.M.’s first few songs from Reunion in September 1995?
