Columnist Jeff German: 17-story tab is the only thing rising

Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2002 | 10:45 a.m.

If you ask county officials when the 17-story Regional Justice Center, the so-called "project from hell," will be completed, they can't give you a firm answer.

Neither can the general contractor, AF Construction.

For a publicly funded project that's more than a year behind schedule and millions in the red, that's not the kind of news the taxpayers want to hear.

"I wouldn't give anyone a solid date right now," says county Aviation Director Randy Walker, who was assigned by County Manager Thom Reilly in February to get the project moving.

Ten months after drawing that assignment, Walker hasn't made much headway.

And money continues to be wasted.

"It's been a nightmare," he says. "We've made progress, but it just hasn't been enough."

Walker now acknowledges that it's possible construction won't be completed until early in 2004, well after his previous prediction of April 2003.

His new pessimism is reflected in an extended county contract with Jacobs Facilities Inc., the construction manager for the job site. The county has agreed to pay the firm another $3.3 million for its oversight duties until Jan. 2, 2004, records show.

The money will come from $33 million in additional funds the county recently pumped into the justice center and the just-completed jail expansion to cover cost overruns.

When its latest extension expires, records show, Jacobs Facilities will have received a total of $15.9 million since 1998 for its work on the two projects.

If you see irony in Walker's decision to hand over more money to Jacobs Facilities, you're not alone. Lax monitoring on the part of the company is what forced the county to shell out the extra $33 million in April.

At the time Walker had so little trust in Jacobs Facilities that he gave $900,000 to another firm, Bechtel Infrastructure Corp., to oversee his overseer.

Why is Walker keeping Jacobs Facilities on board?

"You don't throw out the baby with the bath water," he says.

Despite its failings, Walker explains, Jacobs Facilities still has a good institutional knowledge of the project necessary to help Bechtel, the new chief overseer, get things back on track.

Just when that will be, however, is anybody's guess.

And soon, Walker says, he'll be seeking to give Bechtel more money, too.

That might lead a cynic to wonder how long the Regional Justice Center will continue to serve as a bottomless money pit for taxpayer dollars.

Walker blames the troubles on AF Construction, which he says has failed to properly structure and coordinate the workload.

The company, he says, still is working at a snail's pace. There are supposed to be enough jobs for 600 workers, but only 120 to 150 workers are employed on a daily basis.

AF Construction, however, blames the slowdown on the county which, with its new layer of oversight, has been slow to pay the general contractor.

"There are two different management structures out there telling us in different ways how they're going to pay the bills," says political consultant Terry Murphy, who represents AF Construction.

If the company can't get its money from the county, she says, it can't pay its subcontractors, and there's no work to do.

But the real loser here is the public.

While the squabbling continues, the public still doesn't get to use the Regional Justice Center, and it continues to get stuck with the rising tab for its construction.

Wouldn't it be nice to know when the "project from hell" will be completed?