NEWS ALERT 🚨 FLORENCE
By WB Franks
Staff Writer
The city council may have taken a wrecking ball to a plan to demolish the parking deck at the corner of Tennessee and Pine streets Tuesday night when the council voted to turn down a contract for the project.
By a 4-2 vote, the council denied a $774,260.85 bid from Tomlin Excavating and Demolition, of Birmingham, which was the low bidder for the project.
Those opposing it said they learned during a Monday meeting that the structure is not at risk of collapsing, but does have issues with problems such as sections of concrete falling.
Several said if it is dangerous enough to demolish, the city should not allow anyone to park there while they decide on the deck’s future.
A new deck was opened earlier this month at the corner of Pine and Tombigbee streets.
The plan had been to tear down the old deck and using it for staging for construction of a new city hall, which was to be build in the parking lot of the current city hall across Tennessee Street from the old deck.
Since then, the council has voiced concerns that the bids for the city hall project are expected to exceed the $48 million bond issue Florence obtained to pay for the project. Now, the future of that project is uncertain.
