A gray, dreary day in New Haven doesn't do much for the city's skyline. But some complain neither does the coliseum.

On September 1st, the coliseum officially closed. The coliseum board made the decision based on claims that the building was no longer making money. But now there are reports that one city alderman feels the coliseum's future should have been left to voters.

City resident Mike Reynolds agrees. "I wish that the citizens would have gotten a vote on whether or not to close the coliseum, and depending on what plan they have for it's use," he said, "I use that to vote whether to keep it or to close it. But I still don't know why they're closing it."

"It's a viable economic space," says Michael Fix of New Haven. "It has made tremendous revenue for the city over the years. The fact that it may be obsolete, well, let's find an alternative."

In a statement from Mayor John DeStefano's office, the mayor says the city has need to develop that land because it is tax generating and potentially job generating. The mayor says "we don't know why anyone would want to keep this rusty 35 year old building as the entryway to downtown New Haven".

"The coliseum was built to blend in with the Knights of Columbus building, that's why they built it out of that particular kind of steel," Reynolds said. "Yea, it looks run down. It needs to be revamped."

"We as a community need to stop tearing down things and replacing them," said Rick Best of New Haven. "I think if they tear it down, they're going to replace it with a parking lot."

In a city funded study, a consulting firm found it would cost $50 million to operate the coliseum for another decade, compared to $21.4 to shut it down.