Sands BethWorks executives will appear this week before the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board in Harrisburg, where Bethlehem officials expect them to announce that the casino opening will be delayed until 2009.

Sands President Robert DeSalvio wouldn't comment on the matter, but city officials acknowledged that demolition of former Bethlehem Steel land is proving to be more difficult than the developers expected.

Not only are concrete foundations thicker and deeper than anyone figured, but the ore pit where the casino will be built must be filled and the fill compacted before the first brick can be laid.

"If it's delay, and that's still an if, it will be disappointing but not surprising," said Tony Hanna, Bethlehem's director of community and economic development.

"That's a brownfield site, and they picked the toughest area of the site to locate the casino. I'd rather them do this right than rush to make some deadline."

Sands BethWorks is building a $600 million development that's to include a casino with 3,000 slot machines, a 300-room hotel, an events center and a shopping mall.

Sands originally planned a July 2008 opening, but pushed that back to December 2008.

Now it appears the project could be pushed into 2009, as demolition crews try to plow through the massive former steel buildings.

"There's a lot more concrete down there than anyone anticipated," said Frank Devlin, Sands director of construction. "You look into some of those foundations and they just keep going down and down."

That's because those aren't just ordinary building foundations, said Charlie Martin, a former Bethlehem Steel chief engineer.

Some have walls that are 6 feet thick, and some include concrete pits that sink an additional 15 feet into the ground.

Several of the building foundations, including those for the steel foundry and the roll foundry, were built not only to support those buildings, but also massive overhead cranes.

"Some of those cranes had weight capacities of more than 100 tons," Martin said. "Oh, they're going to have fun with those foundations."