Engineers now say it could take until the end of the year before the demolition of the partially collapsed Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans is completed, almost twice as long as officials had estimated a few weeks ago.

The new plan laid out by firms working for 1031 Canal Development, the consortium behind the Hard Rock project, says it will take workers until May to stabilize the building enough to begin picking it apart. The process of dismantling the twisted mass of concrete and steel at the corner of Canal and North Rampart streets would then stretch into December.

City officials said Friday they are not pleased.

“We are very unhappy with that timeline and we have made it very clear to them that we are unhappy with it and we have asked them to go back and find some way to shorten this timeline,” New Orleans Fire Department Superintendent Tim McConnell said.

City officials had said Dec. 12 that they expected the process to be wrapped up by around late summer.

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McConnell, who has been Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s point-person on the Hard Rock collapse, said the city received new plans for the demolition on Christmas Eve that call for months of additional work to ensure the structure is properly supported before efforts can begin to take it down.

“This is still a very dangerous building, and it’s the ownership’s responsibility to mitigate this disaster,” he said.

Representatives of the developers did not respond to requests for comment on Friday. The primary partner in the $85 million project is developer Mohan Kailas.

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The top floors of the partially built Hard Rock collapsed on Oct. 12, killing three workers and injuring several more. The bodies of two of those workers remain trapped inside the rubble.

Other than using explosives to partially demolish two cranes that had been attached to the building, the site has largely remained untouched since the original collapse.

After briefly considering a plan to implode the building, the developers and city officials settled on a two-part proposal for the demolition. First, crews would be brought in to shore up the building, which is in a precarious state that engineers warn could further collapse. Once it is stabilized, efforts to retrieve the two bodies inside could begin and then the structure could be taken apart piece by piece.

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The development firm is responsible for the demolition of the site, but its plans need to be reviewed by the city and outside experts before they are approved.

The original timeline envisioned by officials would have seen the building shored up by Feb. 28 and the demolition completed by late summer.

But the new plans submitted by the firm the developers have hired to shore up the building said that just stabilizing it enough to begin the demolition work would take until May, McConnell said. The site would not be fully cleared until near the end of the year, he said.

“I would like to think the engineers can figure a way, a fast way to do it safely,” he said.

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Meanwhile, McConnell said the developers have not yet provided the city with evidence of the need to demolish three adjacent historic buildings on Canal and Iberville streets — which are also owned by Kailas or another partner in the Hard Rock venture, Todd Trosclair — in order to safely bring down the ill-fated hotel.

That plan has been criticized by historic preservationists and Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer. But Cantrell has indicated she supports the proposal based on a need to create a clear line of sight to the building during demolition.

McConnell on Friday said developers have not yet submitted any evidence that those three buildings' demolition is needed.

“We’ve made it very clear they need to present hard evidence that stands up to peer review to do that,” McConnell said. “It’s their responsibility to prove that needs to be done.”