LEWISTON – Rising steel prices and other complications are forcing City Administrator Jim Bennett to ask for more money for two projects.

Bennett will ask the City Council to approve two bond issues at their meeting Tuesday, one for $500,000 for the Colisee work and another for $600,000 for the planned Southern Gateway parking garage.

It’s not the kind of thing Bennett wants to bring before the council while discussing a pending property tax-cap vote.

“The timing couldn’t be worse,” Bennett said. “The reality is, though, the numbers are what they are. We can’t hide and pretend it isn’t there.”

Councilors are scheduled to vote on the bonds at their regular meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Lewiston City Hall.

An additional $500,000 in bonds for the Colisee would bring the construction budget up to about $2 million. Plans call for adding a three-floor glass facade with a third-floor party room, second-floor concessions and first-floor offices to the ice arena.

“About $40,000 to $50,000 of that is asbestos abatement,” Bennett said. “Another $200,000 is steel prices and another $250,000 is because of the retaining wall.”

Crews had to build a new retaining wall under the original ice arena’s wall and move the facade out several feet.

Bennett said the new plan would restructure Colisee debt, lowering the city’s payments for the first few years but spreading it out over a longer time.

Bids for the planned 377-space Lisbon Street parking garage came in high last month by almost $1 million. The city eliminated plans for an elevator, a decorative glass block lighting system, landscaping and fences, and decorative steel and architectural columns on the northern and southern sides, bringing the cost of the project down to about $4.6 million. The city had only budgeted $4 million, however.

“At least 50 percent of that garage is steel,” Bennett said. “That’s the entire problem there.”

An international steel consultant group, MEPS International Limited, has blamed the rise in steel prices on a building boom in China.