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But the outlook of landing funds for the job — projected to cost around $10 million — is as dim as ever amid the state’s fiscal crisis.
The bidding process is being undertaken now to determine exactly how much the city must request from the state, said city Economic Development Administrator Henry Fernandez.
Waiting for bids, choosing one of them and then finalizing a contract is expected to take months, officials said.
Gov. John G. Rowland’s proposed budget for the new July 1 fiscal year cuts planned bond sales by $150 million, said Julie Cammarata, policy director for the state Office of Policy and Management.
That proposal, yet to be acted upon by the General Assembly, would leave a total of $57 million in "Urban Act" funding for capitol projects statewide next year, Cammarata said.
Rowland, who decides which local capital projects receive bond revenues, has effectively put the brakes on bond sales.
The state Bond Commission, the governor’s rubber stamp for release of bond revenue, has met only once this year, in March. At that time, the panel approved $268 million, $192 million of which was for school construction projects, the remainder for state agencies and pressing projects, such as water pollution control.
State Sen. Martin Looney, D-New Haven, who is Senate majority leader and co-chairman of the legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, said school construction funding is the state’s top priority.
The state must ease borrowing to address its projected $800 million deficit for the next fiscal year, Looney said.
"The debt service is part of the general fund spending. The two are inter-related," Looney said.
Rowland said last year that he would not agree to fund demolition of the Coliseum until the city presented a plan for what would replace the 31-year-old structure, which closed for good last August in a sea of red ink.
In March, the city unveiled its plan, which calls for a relocated Long Wharf Theatre, a new hotel-conference center, and apartment buildings ringing a European-style plaza stretching from State to Church Street, where the city and state plan to relocate Gateway Community College, at the former sites of the Edw. Malley Co. and Macy’s department stores.
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