DETROIT -- Wayne County officials moved forward Thursday with the hiring of a contractor to oversee completion of a half-built jail on Gratiot Avenue and St. Antoine in Downtown Detroit, a site that's also been proposed for a major league soccer stadium.

Work on the 2,000-bed jail project halted in June of 2013 when it became clear it was tens of millions over its $300 million budget.

The county has since elected a new CEO, weathered a financial emergency, and now appears ready to resume construction of the jail, approving a nearly $4 million consulting contract with the South Carolina-based Carter Goble Associates, LLC (CGL), which has experience building jails.

The Wayne County Commission on Thursday also approved a settlement with the original contractors who failed to complete the jail on budget, AECOM and Ghafari.

The two contractors will pay Wayne County $2.5 million, dismiss all counter-claims against the county and provide undisputed ownership of all design documents for the jail, County Executive Warren Evans' office announced.

"The Commission's decision to approve the settlement agreement with AECOM and Ghafari puts us one step closer to removing the eyesore that the unfinished jail site has become," said Evans. "Now that we have settled with AECOM and Ghafari, we can focus on completing the Gratiot jail, the next step is preparing and then issuing a Design/Build RFP. CGL will be instrumental in helping the County with the significant task of preparing this RFP."

The hiring of CGL is meant to prevent another budgeting debacle in the jail project.

"According to the Wayne County Office of Auditor General's Report, a major problem leading to the debacle of the partially-built jail was the County's failure to have a consistent, competent and conflict-free owner's representative overseeing the jail project," Wayne County Executive Warren Evans' office said in a statement.

Thursdays approvals could represent a significant step away from a proposal, led by Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores and Quicken Loans Chairman Dan Gilbert, to scrap the jail project and instead build a soccer stadium for a major league team on the site.

Gilbert has long argued that the site, in Downtown Detroit's Greektown district, should be used for a major entertainment venue, not another criminal justice building.

But Evans has said the county can't afford to let the money it already spent on starting the jail project go to waste, and that Gores and Gilbert would have to cover the entire cost of building a new jail at a different site if they want the Gratiot Avenue property.

The county has already poured roughly $150 million into the site. Gilbert has in the past offered just $50 million to purchase the land.

In another development related to the jail, the Michigan Court of Appeals issued a ruling that allows charges to continue against two former county officials blamed for the jail debacle.

Carla Sledge, who served as former Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano's chief finance officer from 2005 to 2013, and Steven Collins, who served as assistant Wayne County corporation counsel from Oct. 2010 through June 2013, were both charged in 2014 with two counts of misconduct in office and two counts of willful neglect of duty in connection with the jail project.

The appeals court declined to dismiss the charges agains Sledge.

The court did order the dismissal of the misconduct in office charges against Collins, because, the court ruled, he was a "public employee" and not a "public official."

The willful neglect charges against him stand.

The misconduct in office charges carry up to five years prison, and the willful neglect of duty charges carry up to one year.

Charges against Anthony Parlovecchio, a third person connected to the jail project, were a dismissed in October 2015.