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That's what Kyle Poulson, a partner in the Fort Worth-based global real estate firm of NAI Huff Partners, said he told Tarrant County College District officials last October, his advice on the fate of the district's two unfinished buildings on the south bluff of the Trinity River downtown. They were the first phase of a sprawling urban campus venture begun in 2006 that has since become mired in controversy and cost overruns. To date, the district has sunk more than $100 million into the deeply troubled project with only the skeletons of two buildings to show for it.

Poulson, of course, isn't the only one in town who thinks the bluff campus is a boondoggle and a black hole sucking in taxpayer dollars. The TCC board itself voted to scrap the original plan almost a year ago when it was at least four years behind schedule with projected costs of completion nearly triple its original estimated price and no signs of any let-up in the escalation. That's why the district has spent $300 million since June to buy and renovate the 35-acre, 900,000-square-foot RadioShack headquarters a few blocks away as a substitute downtown campus. The change in direction was made to bring "cost certainty" to the project, Chancellor Leonardo de la Garza said at the time.  But that hasn't happened either

Since June, as the board floundered in indecision over what to do with the bluff site, work on the unfinished buildings has slowed to a crawl, yet costs continue to pile up under construction contracts signed long before the board switched horses.

Then in February, a split board voted to release money to speed up work to finish the "shell" of the bluff buildings. The vote didn't authorize contractors to finish the buildings as an educational campus, as some news outlets reported.  However, the vote did indicate the desire of a majority of the board, at the urging of de la Garza, to do just that in the near future - which would give the community college two downtown campuses three blocks apart, as well as a controversial sunken plaza and tunnel to connect the site to the river.

The price tag on the bluff project just east of the historic Tarrant County courthouse is now approaching historic dimensions of its own. By the district's own estimates, if completed, it will cost seven to 10 times that of most public college buildings in Texas, and it far outstrips the per-square-foot costs of any other recent downtown Fort Worth project.  Estimated costs of the two buildings have increased fivefold between May 2007 and February 2009, without any explanation from the keepers of the public purse for such a dramatic rise. If the chancellor and the current board majority prevail and the bluff site is completely built out, the combined costs for the two downtown campuses will total more than half a billion dollars.

If all that makes your mind reel, it puts you in the same boat as a few dissident members of the TCC board, some local real estate experts, folks who helped found the TCC district 40 years ago, and taxpayer watchdogs, as the list of bizarre revelations continues to grow concerning what one critic has called the "Taj Majal on the Trinity."

Nothing has more confounded TCC's critics and supporters alike than the projected unit costs of completing the bluff buildings for academic use. By the district's own unblushing admission at a February board meeting, the cost of completion would be  $1,538 per square foot - compared to the $225 per-square-foot cost of the average college building in Texas, or $300 for recent private construction in downtown Fort Worth.

"The cost per square foot is crazy, absolutely off-the-wall crazy," Poulson said, his voice rising with incredulity. "I'm really upset about it. This has to be the highest per-square-foot cost of any building in [Tarrant County] history." If this had been a development using private funds, he said, "It never would have gotten off the ground."

Poulson's company has been a part of the city's real estate landscape for 23 years and is a major player in the redevelopment of the 7th Street corridor between downtown and the Cultural District "If anyone had suggested to any developer here that they would be building anything costing 1,500 bucks a square foot, [the developer] would have laughed him out of the room," he said.  "The project is far too expensive for the taxpayers to put any more money into it."

At a meeting of real estate professionals, college officials, and others in October, Poulson said, "I voiced my opinion, very strongly, that [the district] should immediately stop construction and put the buildings on the market for whatever they can get." When he finished speaking, he said, "no one stood up and said 'No, no, this has to move forward.' "

To date, the district has spent $100.6 million on construction of the two buildings with a combined gross area of about 132,000 square feet, according to documents released by the district to Fort Worth Weekly under an open records request. Completing them will cost an additional $103 million, according to the documents.

(There are two smaller buildings on the bluff site with a total of 15,700 square feet, that Vice Chancellor David Wells told the board could also be completed, but no cost has yet been associated with them. The only announced cost estimates are for the two larger buildings.)

About $62 million has gone to the project's construction manager, Austin/Con-Real, which reported to the board in May 2007 that the cost of the two bluff buildings at that time would be $40.7 million. A year later, the projected costs had risen to $170 million. By February 2009, it was $203 million.

"That's a $33 million, 20 percent increase in only eight months, with no explanation. ... TCC's abysmal record in construction cost control has only gotten worse." said Arlington tax watchdog Bob Mhoon, a retired naval officer and former adjunct professor at TCC. He's been the bane of the TCC administration for his relentless requests for public documents - especially those pertaining to the downtown campus, which he has called a massive waste of taxpayer dollars that should be going to scholarships for students rather than to build a monument to the chancellor and the board.

Even board members can't get an explanation for the zooming costs. Trustee Joe Hudson, elected last year after campaigning to lower tuition costs, rein in spending, and stop the downtown project, said he can't get answers from the chancellor  other than vague references to increased construction costs.  Calls to de la Garza seeking comment for this story were not returned.

Hudson said that the true costs are even higher than what has been reported to the board. The usable footage of the two buildings is only about 100,000 square feet, he said, bringing the unit costs "a lot closer to $2,000 a square foot." Hudson, trustee Robyn Winnett, and board vice president Bobby McGee have all argued for the bluff site to be mothballed and sold as is, but the crew is one vote shy of a majority.

Even Fort Worth Star-Telegram business writer Mitch Schnurman, in a recent column endorsing the completion of the two buildings with plaza and tunnel, wrote that "the square foot costs ... are arguably the highest for any building in Texas," although he didn't report the actual numbers.