Delays continue to pile up at Justice Center

Kim Smith

Monday, Sept. 9, 2002 | 9:06 a.m.

The second floor of the Regional Justice Center's high-rise is just about finished. The walls are sheet-rocked, the carpeting and marble are laid, the doors are up.

No one knows when the other 15 floors will catch up, not to mention the five-story building next door.

AF Construction, the general contractor on the project, has told county officials a temporary certificate of occupancy could be issued as early as February.

If that date is met, Clark County's prosecutors and judges could begin to move into the building by this time next year.

Randy Walker isn't holding his breath.

"That date is meaningless to me until there are 600 workers out there every day, working consistently," said Walker, the county's aviation director, who has been overseeing the construction of the center and the jail expansion since March, when it was already a year behind schedule.

"(Friday) there were 176 workers out there. By that I mean, 176 people with tools. To meet the February date, they have to have 600 workers out there working every day."

"They can give us a date, but they can't give us a schedule showing us how they can get to that date," Walker said.

Because of the delays, Walker said, it has been estimated that it will cost AF Construction $6 million to $9 million in labor and additional materials to finish the job.

That figure doesn't include $12,000 a day in additional overhead costs between now and the time the construction is complete, Walker said.

"When I got on the job there were less than 100 people on the job," Walker said. "That first day I saw 10 people, and I'm not saying they were all working. In August they had 400 people working a day, but now it's fallen off again."

Walker said that while some of the delays can be tied to change orders, subcontractors have walked off the job, saying they haven't been paid.

"But we don't have a contractual relationship with the subcontractors. I can tell you that the county has paid the general contractor, but what he's doing -- if he's paying the subcontractors properly -- is between him and the subs," Walker said.

While the county may end up having to pay some of the overrun once an arbitrator figures out which delays were the county's fault, the bigger price tag will come out of AF Construction's pocket or that of its bonding company, Walker said.

"That there will be arbitration on this job there is no question," Walker said. "Right now we're what they call 'papering the process.' We've notified the bonding company and we're letting the contractor know what our issues are."

One of the issues currently involves "vertical movement," Walker said.

AF Construction removed an outside elevator or "man-lift" from the site several weeks ago because it was in the way, Walker said. Since there are only two working elevators inside, workers are having to wait 20 minutes or so to get to to the upper floors of the project.

The news isn't all bad.

Walker said a temporary certificate of occupancy for the new section of the jail was issued Aug. 16. Jail officials will begin moving inmates into the 1,320-bed facility the first week of October.

Moreover, county officials have not yet found reason to complain about the quality of the work being done on either project.

"At this point, it's fine," Walker said. "Of course, we won't be able to tell about some of it until it's been tested."

The RJC consists of three buildings totaling 702,000 square feet. A 17-story high-rise will house the administrative offices of the Municipal, Justice and District courts, portions of the district attorney's office, the Nevada Supreme Court, courtrooms and a full-service cafeteria.

People will be able to pay their traffic fines, both city and county, next door in a five-story building that will also house the marriage license bureau, city attorney's office, jury services, a victim-witness advocacy center and a variety of other court-related offices.

A third structure, located between the two court buildings, will contain banks of elevators and public restrooms.

The project, one of the largest ever undertaken by the county, has had troubles from the time voters approved spending $120 million on the public safety projects in 1996.

A floor was cut out of the original plans for the building when bids on the project came back $13.5 million higher than expected and after another $13 million had been cut out of the project.

For a short period of time in 2000, officials considered asking the business community for $4 million to add the floor back into the plans. Ultimately, however, the county ended up buying the Clark Place building across the street to house portions of the district attorney's office.

Then, in April this year, the county commissioners approved $30 million in cost overrun money for the project. An additional $3 million was given by the city.

Half of the $30 million came from a $34.5 million fund earmarked for construction projects, such as public parks. The rest is expected to come from $18 million in bonds the county issued in January to reimburse itself for $13.5 million in cash the county used last year to buy the Clark Place building.

The county is also paying for delays in other ways. An inmate housing contract with the city expired April 30. As a result, the county is paying the city $50 a day per inmate to house those inmates who should be housed in the new facility.

County officials had estimated the total cost of housing those inmates through November would be $5 million.