Friday, March 28, 2003 | 11:09 a.m.
The new downtown courthouse has become an icon of what can go wrong with a public works project.
The project is millions of dollars over budget, but Clark County officials say the bigger problem is that it has grown into a permanent construction job -- already a year behind schedule with no realistic end in sight.
The construction work started three years ago, but construction trailers, heavy equipment and closed roads still crowd the site.
Last year the Clark County Commission put Aviation Department Director Randy Walker, a veteran of huge construction projects at McCarran International Airport, on the job to oversee the project.
"It is an absolute nightmare," Walker said.
Walker said AF Construction, the company with the once $170 million, now $185 million, job has only about one-third of the workers on the construction site it would need if the company were to finish by August -- already 20 months past its completion date of January 2002.
"The schedule doesn't mean anything," Walker said. "We're a little baffled as to how they're supposed to get the work done. ... This is a time issue."
Instead of more than 300 workers, AF Construction has about 100 men on the job daily, Walker said.
The problem, according to management with AF Construction, is that the county is not paying the bills in full or quickly enough. That means that the local company doesn't have the cash to keep subcontractors on the job.
AF Construction Project Manager Brad Byington said the county has fought or delayed payment for months, and unfairly demanded that his company and the subcontractors do work for no pay.
That has left AF Construction with little cash to continue paying for workers, a factor that will inevitably delay the work.
Walker and the county, however, say any money disputes will be resolved through arbitration once the project is concluded, and it is up to the company and its financial backers to find a way to get there.
"These guys are just shutting the job down," Walker said.
The issue is at the heart of an ongoing blood feud between the construction company and the county. Discussions with both sides show that virtually every significant change order is or has been in dispute.
The company insists that changes to construction were ordered by the county or the two construction management companies hired by the county and that they are not being paid for legitimate work.
"People are not going to do things for free," Byington said. "We're doing everything possible out-of-pocket, but these problems are not ours. ... Basically, (the county) has shut down the project."
The county is equally insistent that the construction company or its subcontractors have done work improperly, billed for work that has not been done or failed to provide invoices to account for materials billed to the county.
Walker, on a recent walk-through of the construction site, showed a major wall in the interior of the building that was built a half-foot too far east, plumbing in the wrong areas, doorways that were built too small, unfinished walls and roofs and numerous other problems.
"That's not what we paid for," Walker said. "We only pay for what they've earned."
Byington, however, said his company and its subcontractors are owed millions of dollars for correcting problems that the county won't deal with.
In each case cited by Walker, the problem is that the county's original design was incomplete or otherwise fundamentally flawed, Byington said.
Those original design problems have cascaded throughout the project, he said, leaving much of the work still in a state of disarray.
Byington said the county has dragged its feet on approving members of a board that, by contract, would review and settle financial disputes. The dispute review board has not met for a year, he said, contributing to the company's distress.
He said change orders that must be approved by the architects often take close to a year to come back, if they come back at all. The changes, even if approved, are sometimes not paid for by the county anyway, Byington said.
After a recent tour of the dusty construction site, Byington pulled out a thick binder from a file cabinet in the company trailer. The binder catalogs 1,100 changes needed from the original architect's design, he said.
Many of those changes have to be repeated throughout the entire 18-story building, Byington said.
In nearly 2,000 rooms in the building, "It's hard to find any room that hasn't had changes, architectural revisions," he said.
Walker and Byington agree the first major design problem was not the contractor's fault. Caliche, a spongy clay-like soil, had to be removed from the base of the building at the start of the construction.
"This job started out on a bad foot from the beginning," Walker said.
But Walker said that change order was approved, the building was raised more than two feet and that should have been the end of the problems. Byington said that was the beginning of them.
The county and the contractor agree on the big problem in the public works nightmare -- the taxpayers are not getting the use of the building that they authorized in a $200 million bond issue in 1996.
"You've paid out over $100 million to build an asset which the public is getting no use out of," said Clark County Finance Director George Stevens. "If you'd invested that money, you'd be getting millions in interest."
County Manager Thom Reilly said similar nightmares might be avoided in the future by closer supervision from the start of a big construction job.
But Byington said taxpayers would benefit immediately on the current project with closer communications and coordination between the government agencies involved, the contractor and its subcontractor and others involved in the process.
"When the contractor says we need a design change to complete construction here, believe it," Byington said.
He warned that his company has about 40 "critical issues" that the county has to address before the construction can conclude. AF Construction will likely go forward with some of the work even if the county does not approve the design changes.
"There's no way to correct these defective plans at this point," he said, adding that the building might ultimately be considered "complete" by the construction company, built to the architect's specifications, but unable to be occupied because it would not meet Las Vegas' building codes.
Walker, however, said the building will be open to the public or the company will not be paid.
"When it's all done it will be a structurally sound, inhabitable building," he said. "It's going to be a safe building."
But that is little solace to Juanita Wilson, who with her husband own -- and live in -- the Koala Motel on Casino Center Boulevard. The Wilsons have endured years of construction across the street from their business.
The work, which sometimes begins shortly after midnight, has pushed most of her renters out, she said.
"It's been devastating," Wilson said. "I'm selling sleep. You don't mind the work in the daytime, but my God -- in the nighttime?"
She has her own perspective on the public squabble.
The bickering, Wilson said, does not appear to be solving any of the problems.
"Let's come to the party and get this done."
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