Orlando cancels demolition contract on Round Building

The Colosseum still stands in the heart of Rome, the survivor of multiple earthquakes through the centuries.

The Parthenon also survives, despite being nearly blown to smithereens by the Venetians during a siege of Athens in 1687.

And like those gems of world architecture, Orlando's Round Building is proving surprisingly difficult to destroy.

The formerly seven-story structure, which dates to the year 1963, has been undergoing a slow-motion destruction over the past several months, with contractor Crusader Demolition missing a series of deadlines.

The building's unlikely survival saga took its latest turn this week, when the city of Orlando finally canceled Crusader's contract.

City spokeswoman Cassandra Lafser said that no decision has been made on who will take over the contract. But that decision will be made by Capitol Indemnity Corporation, which insured the project, she said. The city will face no additional cost because of the change, Lafser said.

Before the $736,810 contract was signed back on Aug. 4, a competing firm pointed out that the Lakeland-based company was unqualified for the job. City officials defended the firm at the time, but that approach has ended.

In addition to terminating the contract, Chief Procurement Officer David Billingsley informed the company Wednesday that the city intends to bar Crusader from bidding on city jobs for the next five years.

Little remains of the former bank building but a soggy, round hole in the ground. But it wasn't supposed to be this way. The intention was to have the building site cleared well before the adjacent Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts opened in November.

The semi-demolished structure has been an eyesore ever since, greeting patrons on their way into the gleaming, $514 million arts center. In one episode along the way, video surfaced of a Crusader employee firing an automatic weapon in the building's basement.

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Orlando cancels demolition contract on Round Building