Hollywood Park Faces Suit and Liens by Contractors

A lawsuit and liens totaling more than $7.7 million have been filed by building contractors against Hollywood Park, which says it has withheld payments because of dissatisfaction with work done in a $30-million improvement program at the track.

C.E. Harger, a vice president and operations manager for the Turner Construction Co., the general contractor for the Hollywood Park project, said Thursday that his firm has filed two liens totaling $6,343,456 against the Hollywood Park Operating Co., Inc., and Hollywood Park Realty Enterprises, Inc.

Kettering & Krussman, Inc., a subcontractor on the job, filed a suit on Monday against the two Hollywood Park companies, Turner Construction and the Security Pacific National Bank. The suit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, seeks payment of $441,233 that Kettering & Krussman says it is owed from original contracts totaling $2,260,674.

“We’re not out of money,” said Vernon O. Underwood, chairman of the board of the Hollywood Park Operating Co. Underwood said he couldn’t comment further because he had been out of the country and wasn’t aware of the lawsuit and the liens.

Neil Papiano, an attorney for Hollywood Park, said the track would be filing suits regarding the construction.

The cornerstone of Hollywood’s improvement program was the Pavilion of the Stars, a five-story building with luxury suites and seats for 13,000 people. On the track, the dirt course was lengthened by a furlong to 1 1/8 miles, making it the biggest in California. The $30-million plan was announced as the start of a four-phase improvement project that would cost $100 million.

Marje Everett, chief operating officer of Hollywood Park, envisioned the pavilion as “the epitome of comfort and convenience for the public.”

Asked to comment on the liens, which are claims on property, Papiano said: “There will always be liens when there’s a dispute. The new building wasn’t put in right. The sightlines aren’t any good, we’ve had trouble with the heating and the air conditioning and there are other problems. I don’t know who we’ll be suing--probably the architect--but there will be suits.”

The architect, Howard Needles Tammen & Bergendoff, is a Kansas City-based firm that was selected, Underwood said, “because of its experience and its national reputation in designing sports facilities.”

Howard Needles designed the Harry S. Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City and has also built new stadiums in Vancouver, Indianapolis, St. Petersburg, Fla., and Buffalo.

Howard Needles filed a lien against Hollywood Park last October for more than $420,000. Liens for smaller amounts have been filed recently by several construction firms.

Bill Strong, a Kansas City spokesman for Howard Needles, said he knows nothing about the lien or a potential lawsuit, and Bill Love, a partner in the company’s Los Angeles office, wasn’t available for comment.

“Somebody created this building, and somebody should pay to fix it,” Papiano said. “That somebody isn’t going to be Hollywood Park. Obviously, you can’t move the building. What has to be done is move the track so people can see better.”

The pavilion was barely finished in time for Hollywood Park to hold the first Breeders’ Cup series, seven nationally televised races worth $10 million that were run last Nov. 10. The new building was jammed with fans and celebrities that day--part of a crowd of 64,000--but during the rest of the track’s fall season the facility drew few patrons and many of the 40 luxury suites, which lease for $50,000 a year, were vacant. At one point, Hollywood offered a giveaway item for fans if they paid their way into the pavilion.

Turner Construction, which began work at Hollywood in October, 1983, is a 20-year-old firm whose previous projects include hotels, hospitals and race tracks in New York and Philadelphia.

Harger said that Turner filed its liens because of slow payments by Hollywood Park.

“We’ve been meeting regularly with Marje Everett to work something out,” Harger said. “We expect to be paid. The job was completed on schedule and we brought it in at the cost we said it would be.”

As for Hollywood Park’s dissatisfaction with the pavilion, Harger said: “We’re not designers, we’re general contractors.”