ANAHEIM : Builder Sues City for Construction Delays
The construction company building a $30-million expansion to the Anaheim Convention Center has filed an $8.7-million claim against the city.
Taylor Woodrow Construction Corp. charges that the city is responsible for 433 extra days of work because of construction delays caused by additional orders the city made on the project.
The Convention Center expansion was a 24-month contract to be completed in late February, but the new exhibit hall was not approved for use by the city until August, over five months later.
“We’re not looking to lay the blame anywhere,” said William Ostfeld, senior vice president of the company. “These things are always open to interpretation and we hope to come to an amicable solution.”
City attorneys are reviewing the claim, and no hearings have been set.
Lynn Thompson, Convention Center general manager, said he wasn’t surprised the company filed the claim, but he said the city is not liable.
“We do not believe the city has done anything to cause the contract to be delayed,” Thompson said. “We have some basic differences of opinions on why there were delays.”
Thompson said the city has withheld about $1.5 million in payments to Taylor Woodrow because of still-unfinished work and liquidated damages of $5,000 a day for each day the construction was delayed.
“The way we see it, the liquidated damages are still running. . . . So, in fact, they do owe us money,” Thompson said.
The additions are the third of four planned renovations to the center since the mid-1970s. This phase included a new 150,000-square-foot exhibit hall, a lower-level parking structure of the same size and an adjacent parking structure.
Still unfinished, according to Thompson, are the floor finish and part of the exterior of Exhibit Hall D. He said if the work is not completed by the end of the month, the city plans to finish it.
Ostfeld agrees there is still some work to do, but earlier delays, such as problems with the fire safety system, decking and about 200 other additional orders from the city were the cause of the overall delay.
