The Hard Rock Hotel, which collapsed on Oct. 12, will not be stabilized until at least May and won’t be demolished until at least December, city officials said Friday.
According to New Orleans Fire Department Chief Tim McConnell, the updated timeline is based off the most recent plans submitted to the city by the project developers,1031 Canal Development LLC. Prior to those plans, which were given to the city Dec. 24, the date to shore up the building was Feb. 28.
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McConnell said the proposed process to install shores to stabilize the building was very labor intensive and involved assembling several hundred four-by-four scaffolds to connect all the way to the roof of the building. He stressed the it’s the responsibility of Canal Development to demolish the building.
The collapse forced an evacuation zone around the construction site, impacting businesses, traffic, tourism and more. Multiple lawsuits were quick to surround the incident as federal investigators continued to investigate the cause and city officials calculated the growing costs of clean up.
The timeline to take down the building had changed several times since its collapse, with engineers for Canal Developers switching from plans for an implosion to a piece-by-piece demolition.
Developers recently requested permits to demolish three buildings surrounding the collapsed site. The plan would involve tearing down three buildings — two on Canal Street and one on Iberville Street — in order to demolish the partially collapsed hotel.
