Convention Center Work in Gear : Double Shifts Race Clock Under Threat of Contract Suit

The excavation of San Diego’s $125-million waterfront convention center, which is months behind schedule and has brought the San Diego Unified Port District to the brink of a lawsuit against the contractor, appears to be back on track.

Although Port District Director Don Nay says it’s still too early to “exude complacency” that the job has been turned around, recent actions by the contractor, Phoenix-based HuntCor Inc., indicate “we seem to be on our way.”

That optimism is based on two primary moves by the company: Since Tuesday, HuntCor has been working double shifts, bringing in portable lights to illuminate the work site for night work that includes use of a pile driver. Second, the company has hired the engineering firm of Dames & Moore, based in Los Angeles, to help solve the problem of water seeping into the site from San Diego Bay.

Port District officials also announced Thursday that the deadline for convention center construction bids, already set back a month to March 5, has been delayed two weeks, to March 19, to give companies bidding on the $101.5-million second phase more time to properly evaluate the more than 3,000 pages of bid documents.

“We’ve been getting calls from a lot of the contractors who’ve asked for more time,” Nay said. “We want to have good bids, and we think this added time will help us get that. We’ve talked to our construction consultants and they think it’s (the delay) in order.”

The new bidding delay was criticized by Torrey Enterprises, the La Jolla-based firm that owns the Hotel Inter-Continental and is preparing to build an adjacent hotel tower, due to open in late 1987. To a large degree, the hotels are dependent on anticipated business from the convention center, which is being built next door but will not open until late summer, 1988.

“I’m disgusted,” said Kip Howard, president of Torrey Enterprises. “The Port District has to be more insistent that its time frames are met. If it doesn’t adhere to well-established guidelines now, when it’s still early, what’s going to happen when the subcontractors want more time?

“Our experience is that time frames have to be met . . . if for no other reason than to maintain credibility on the job site.”

In late October, the hotel closed two of its restaurants, saying it couldn’t support them until the second tower and convention center open for business.

As for the excavation of the convention center site, the new work activity is the best signal yet that HuntCor may have taken a recent Port District ultimatum to heart.

Last week, with the months-long delay in the excavation showing no signs of ending, the Port District sent a letter to HuntCor demanding that the company live up to the specifications in its $5.4-million contract.

HuntCor, which did not return phone calls Thursday, was supposed to have finished digging the foundation for the center, on 11 acres at the foot of 5th Avenue, on Oct. 31. The Port District’s contract with HuntCor, approved May 6, gave the company 165 days to accomplish its work.

Various physical obstacles, such as unexpected work in moving a large storm drain and water seepage--plus what the Port District described as lack of management attention to the project--caused the delays.

More work is now being done than in the last several weeks, port officials say.

“They’re working at night, and I think that’s a positive sign,” Nay said. “They are getting the (sheet) piling in, which is important. It’s my belief . . . they’re addressing the situation.”

The Port District had set what could be described as a deadline, though Nay declined to call it that, of next Friday for HuntCor to show signs that it had made significant efforts to put in the sheet pile and have an adequate water removal system working.

“It was what I’d call another milestone,” Nay said.

Nay also said the Port District wanted HuntCor to bring in outside help on the seepage problem. Last Friday, the company hired Dames & Moore, according to Nay.

“They came aboard as of last Friday afternoon,” he said. “I don’t want to say anything bad about who was there before, but these people (Dames & Moore) are top professional people and, in a way, it’s another milestone.”

Officials at the Dames & Moore headquarters in Los Angeles referred calls about the San Diego convention center excavation to Rick Von Pein, who works in the firm’s Phoenix office. Von Pein was out of town and unavailable for comment.

It’s now estimated by Port District officials that HuntCor won’t finish the excavation until the end of April or the first of May. That is when, given the new delay in opening bids, construction on the second phase is likely to begin.