Port District Concerned : Bay Keeps Seeping Into Convention Center Site

Water from San Diego Bay is seeping into a large pit dug for the foundation of San Diego’s $125-million waterfront convention center.

And while San Diego Unified Port District officials are concerned about this development, mainly because the excavation contractor is already two months behind schedule, they don’t believe the water problem will delay construction of the center.

“We’re nagging them about that . . . we’re grumping all over them,” William Rick, a port commissioner and owner of an engineering firm, said about HuntCor Inc. of Phoenix, the company that has a $5.1-million contract to excavate and prepare the 11-acre site at the foot of 5th Avenue.

Although the company has been attempting to pump out the water, which is several inches deep, it is still seeping in. Two days ago, HuntCor President R.G. Hunt visited the site and met with Port District officials, including Executive Director Don Nay and senior engineer John Wilbur.

HuntCor officials have declined to discuss the water problem or why the firm is behind schedule, saying Hunt is the only person who can speak for the company. Hunt was unavailable for comment Thursday.

The problem is that the foundation pit is about 11 to 12 feet below sea level. The port’s contract with HuntCor requires the firm to prepare a dry building site and make sure that the water stays five feet below the ground beneath the foundation, Rick said.

What’s needed, he said, is for the company to put in more pumps and wells, which HuntCor has promised to do by the end of January.

Another problem facing the company is that it hasn’t put in all the necessary sheet pilings around the perimeter of the pit, another job HuntCor says will be done by the end of the month, Rick said.

HuntCor was supposed to have finished its excavation work at the end of November. Later, port officials said the job would be completed by mid-February. But a Jan. 2 status report given to the commission by Wilbur says HuntCor may not be done until April 11, more than a month after bids for the $101.5-million second phase of the center’s construction are scheduled to be opened.

“We keep getting conflicting testimony,” Rick said. “We’re told on paper the completion date is April 11, but we’re told privately by the company that they’ll be finished by the middle of February.

“I can’t believe they’ll be done by the middle of February.”

The seepage problem hasn’t stopped HuntCor from removing part of the estimated 200,000 cubic yards of dirt from the site or going about its other work.

“As far as we can tell, things are going slowly but they seem OK. There’s no evidence that the foundation is being destroyed,” Rick said. “If the water starts to boil out of the ground, then we’re talking about something else.”

What the Port District has to have, Rick said, is sufficient time, once HuntCor completes its work, to let the site sit idle to see if the pit stays dry.