Plummeting scrap steel prices threatens to put on hold demolition of Memorial Auditorium.

The Buffalo contractor scheduled to start tearing down the Aud later this month is threatening to walk away from the job because tumbling scrap prices have rendered its $1.31 million bid unprofitable.

Several sources familiar with the demolition project said Ontario Specialty Contracting predicated its winning bid on the value of scrap steel it would recover Aud. The bid was put together in late summer as scrap steel prices soared to a record-high $900 per gross ton for the highest quality metal.

Ontario Specialty had expected to recoup more than $2 million from the approximately 5,000 tons of steel beams and other components it expected to recover from the Aud rubble, sources said. But the dramatic collapse of the global scrap steel market over the past six weeks