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twitterHow did CityCenter tower flaws persist?
Failed safeguards puzzle county inspections official
Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Sam Morris
The Harmon won’t open until 2010, but the hotel’s exterior will be finished and the building lighted when CityCenter is unveiled this year.
Clark County is investigating the consultants hired by CityCenter owner MGM Mirage to inspect the structural integrity of construction work at the site, after faulty rebar caused massive problems in the project’s Harmon tower.
Topping Out CityCenter
On Wednesday, May 14, CityCenter commemorated the "topping out" of its 57-story Vdara Condo Hotel. The opening is planned for August 2009.
Beyond the Sun
Ron Lynn, the county’s director of development services, said Wednesday that engineering consulting firm Converse Consultants repeatedly filed rebar inspection reports indicating there were no problems with The Harmon.
However, an employee of the engineer of record for the tower, Halcrow Yolles, walking the site in July, discovered rebar deficiencies. By that point, much of the reinforcing iron had been buried in concrete.
Those concerns prompted a more detailed county inspection that halted construction on the project and led to the decision Wednesday by MGM Mirage to top off the building — originally planned as a 49-story tower — at 28 floors.
Lynn said that while responsibility for the faulty rebar ultimately lies with the general contractor, Perini Building Co., and rebar subcontractor, Pacific Coast Steel, he wants to learn how an apparent systematic breakdown in the inspection process occurred.
“There are multiple levels that transpired here,” Lynn said. “You have to put the first burden on the contractors who put the work in because they are responsible by law to install it correctly. But certainly the special inspector should have caught the problem.”
The county requires project owners such as MGM Mirage to hire certified inspectors to sign off on structural elements of construction projects and submit their reports to the county.
On Wednesday morning, MGM Mirage announced it was reconfiguring the project as a 28-floor hotel rather than a 49-story building topped with condominiums, and delaying its opening to 2010. The Harmon will no longer include the planned 200 residential units that were to occupy the top floors of the building.
Lynn said the county had expected MGM Mirage to submit new plans to reconfigure the engineering design of the building. But now a shorter building will make extensive reconfiguration unnecessary, experts say.
Lynn thinks the problems stemmed from construction errors rather than a faulty design. The county had signed off on blueprints that should not have been difficult for the contractors to interpret, he said.
Outside experts said that although mistakes on large construction sites are not uncommon, the size and scope of The Harmon’s troubles — and the decision by the owner to shorten the building as a result — is.
“This is not a perfect science. Human error is involved,” said an expert who isn’t involved in the CityCenter project. “A lot of times, a mistake that isn’t caught the first time is perpetuated.”
Particularly puzzling to Lynn was the fact that the mistakes in this case were not uniform. “In some cases the number of rebar was wrong and in some places it was in the wrong place,” Lynn said.
“They were inconsistent in their errors. We don’t understand how that inconsistency could have been missed or why it was done, and that’s certainly an area of concern for us,” he said.
Lynn would like to better understand why the rebar was installed incorrectly, but his department can only sanction inspectors for violations, not contractors.
In a Notice of Violation issued Aug. 5, county inspectors said that Scott Edberg and Joseph Glenn Laurente, employees of Converse Consultants, noted in their reports to the county that all structural reinforcements complied with approved plans. But, the notice stated, “it had been found in the field that the link beams reinforcing has severely deficient items, such as reinforcing torch cut, misaligned and missing cap ties” on floors 5 through 20.
After the county issued the notice ordering that the site be shut down, officials began an investigation to determine whether Edberg and Glenn were responsible for problematic oversight at other projects at CityCenter and elsewhere.
Lynn expects to issue results of that investigation in a couple of weeks. The county could strip Edberg and Glenn of their certifications to conduct inspections in some or all areas, or require them to pass new tests.
One of the inspectors no longer works for Converse and the other has been reassigned, Lynn said.
The county could also stop Converse from conducting inspections for a time, imposing a significant monetary loss on the company.
Converse representatives did not respond to calls for comment. Pacific Coast Steel representatives also could not be reached. Perini spokeswoman Lesley Pittman said the company did not want to comment while the county investigation was ongoing.
Like many other municipalities, Clark County relies on the oversight of third-party inspectors hired by owners because it doesn’t have the manpower to examine every aspect of every building project in the county, Lynn said. Instead, the county employs as many as 14 “monitors” to spot-check the work of the third-party inspectors who submit regular reports.
In the case of The Harmon, county monitors examined rebar on the lower floors and did not find any problems because the rebar deficiencies did not occur until construction reached the fifth floor.
The county monitors who inspected the higher floors did not examine the rebar, Lynn said.
In addition to looking at the role of the third-party inspectors, Lynn said, his department may also examine its role, which he said is limited by resources. The monitors often spend much of their time inspecting buildings’ foundations rather than rebar placement because rebar is not as complicated, he said.
“We have one of the largest staffs around devoted to monitoring,” Lynn said. “But when something like this happens you have to ask how it happened and I have been asking is our level of oversight adequate. Do we need to focus more on a particular project? But particularly in these economic times, there’s just not the manpower.”
Sun reporter Liz Benston contributed to this story.
Discussion: 24 comments so far…
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Before this was disclosed, I was told by a friend that iron workers and others would walk by and throw trash and scrap steel in the concrete as it was being poured. The county has the responsibility to make sure that all construction meets the building codes. Lynn should be terminated along with all inspectors that missed the faulty construction. The contractor, sub-contractors and the inspection firm should face heavy fines and suspension of their licenes. The economy should have nothing to do with this gross negligence.
Funny. They're blaming the third party inspectors for not catching improperly installed rebar? Anybody wonder if the Union layabouts who actually misplaced the steel might have some liability? Nah, in this town, it's who you know or...
Are there x-rays of the rebar quantities & overlaps
at levels 1-14?
Have they been compared to the structural design construction set?
The big question:
Was it just extremely poor sloopy work by the union workers or was it intentional?
Exactly why again, do we require union wages on building new schools? Quality......Not!!!!!
faulty rebar work/concrete work is standard issue in this town and has been for years. Special Inspectors file documents called NCR's (Non-Compliance Reports). I bet the entire city center job has well over a thousand structurally related non-compliances, maybe more.
Over the years the local engineers have simply added more steel and rebar to their designs knowing the contractors and subcontracotrs will screw it up, not install rebar, be properly notified by the special inspector and pour the concrete anyway to keep the schedule.
Fixing the NCR's is usually a simple modification due to the extra steel added by enginners. Funny thing is that owners don't even realize they are paying for the extra steel. Then it is not even 100% in place, then they pay for the repair to fix it.
This must have been one huge mistake. Either the engineer went with the minimum safety factor to save money and the contractors missed something really big or the contractors missed something really big and missed something else really big.
I'm suprised no one is mentioning reviewing the non-compliance log book. It might just have the answer. Sadly, it is typical for the contractor to continue on with work even if non-compliance reports are issued. If no NCR's exist the special inspection firm should have their liscense removed. If NCR's exist and the contractor grossly continued construction without resolving the issue then the Contractor and their subs are in big trouble. If the contractor timely notified the structural engineer of the non compliance and the enginner delayed in getting an answer then the Enginner is on the hook.
Clark County is not off the hook either. On a project of this scope and scale, they should have been performing a bi-weekly structural inspeciton of the 3rd party inspector to ensure their paper work is up to date and that NCR's are getting fixed.
My 2 cents.
This just seems like a convenient way for MGM to get out of having to build the rest of those condos to save money because they know they won't be able to sell them at the price they though they could get for them.
It's wayyyyy different world in 2009 than it was in 2006 when this thing started.
If it's true that the hired inspectors falsified their reports, criminal action should be taken. Will it? Of course not, not for anything casino-related in Nevada.
Shoddy construction but no meaningful enforcement; MGM, Harrah's get free passes -- http://www.thebeargrowls.com/?p=216
Just thank god that these deficiencies were discovered in time or else at some point in the future-the entire building could have collapsed. Clark county has GOT to make sure that THEIR inspectors are constantly inspecting these projects for structural integrity and NOT rely on third party inspectors hired by the owners.
All rebar is inspected before every concrete pour. The talk that this town in known for substandard rebar is pure poppykok. falcified records yeah right, wait until the facts come out
Vegasvic,
I won't go into the details or specific projects like fallonsouth has, but go down to building department and ask what an NCR is.
Then name a project and ask how many that job has. Ask to look at one or two. These words become very repetative for the fix:
Drill & Epoxy
Drill 3/8" hole for 8" embedment of 12 # 4's.
Ensure hole is blown out and no debris is present.
Inject Hilti HY150 or Simpson Set Epoxy
Set rebar.
Oh yeah, make sure the special inspector is watching.
Or call Hilti and ask how much HY150 they have sold to city center.
This is how it is done in Vegas my friend.
Round up the usual suspects. And check for greased palms.
Assessing liability in these matters is never easy. The conditions of the underlying contracts between the parties determine the obligations, rights and liabilities of the parties.
Generally, the contractor who installs the defective construction will be held liable for remedial construction, and resulting damages.
Parties such as inspectors and third party representatives who are further removed from the actual construction will often negotiate indemnification provisions into their contracts
relieving them of liability, unless it can be clarly demonstrated that the proximate cause of the faulty construction was their failure to perform. In some cases these third party representatives even classify themselves in the contract with the owner as an agent of the owner further shielding them from direct liability.
Things are never as easy as they seem to be in these matters--READ THE CONTRACT.
I'm sure that the poor slobs who toil in the hot sun all day installing and bending rebar know the proper procedures and would recognize shoddy work or any grossly improper work.
I rather doubt that its difficult for inspectors to count and measure. If you space the rebar further apart, you use less and save some money. So inspectors can't count and measure too? Its a simple task. Doesn't take a PhD.
Whether this shortcut is merely an excuse to ditch the condominium due to the credit crunch, I don't know, but the shortcut is real and it is fundamental hazard.
my money says: The rebar thing is just politics. i believe that there are financial problems and MGM is not able to sell all those condos within time. Why spending extra millions of dollars if you know you can't make any money out of it? sounds simple to say...."o, wow, it's because of bad rebar construction..."
Maybe the bean counters told them to do what it takes to put in the tonage...
All I know is , I will never go to that building.
Even if it does have 20 floors less. The screw ups must be enormous to reduce the project by that much.
I wonder what it will cost the contractors that have to cancel 20 floors worth of materials.
I wonder how it will affect the Rebar Company and the General Contractor.
Its not individuals, its not bean counters or the union guys. You must look at the contractors. Perini wants to be the big guy which advertises that it can tackle all of the large work. How do you accomplish this? By hiring people, large volumes of people. Many of these people have no idea what they are looking at or understand the function of the items or systems being installed let alone understand the basic premise of design. We refer to these people as "warm bodies". There is no test for competence. They exist because the GC is billing the owner, MGM, for these supervisory personnel many times over what they pay the employee. This is ony a part of the way Perini makes their money. Money of these "warm bodies" are incompetent. Many have lost their jobs elsewhere and many have inflated their resumes. Anyway they have found their way to this and other projects.
Perini has some very fine people working for them and they have a tremendous number of incompetents, but again, their sole purpose is a vehicle to bill the owner. What about the reinforcing subcontractor competence? Where was the competence of the concrete placing crews superintendence to spot problems? Perini has attempted to procure work in difficult locales such as NYC. Do they have prior experience as a NYC building or concrete contractor? No. How about Atlantic City as a concrete contractor? Not for decades. With their own inflated egos they believe and attempt to promote themselves that they are the only ones capable of performing such large and complex concrete projects as the World Trade Center. Many of the large contactors today are not the "self-performing" contractors that existed decades ago, they are "brokers" that subcontract out the risk and liability. Just because you are a large conglomerate does not neccessarily mean you posses talent or competence. Other examples of large and incompetent are Turner and Bovis. They don't perform or competently direct the work but their contracts allow them to manage the work in "reverse".
Possibly there were no other reinforcing contractors willing or able to take on this project due to the lack of available manpower. Maybe they wound up with all of the "dregs". Posssibly it was another case of where this publicly held corporation (Perini) did not subscribe to their own corporate policies on drug and alcohol usage. Perini's policy is in black and white and promoted that if your test is positive for drugs or alcohol your employment is immediatly terminated. That was not the case in Connecticut where Perini's General Superintendent tested positive for dope and the head of construction (MK) and the regional VP (SS) overode that policy. That person kept his job and is now in Las Vegas working on City Center. That person, the son of a long term Perini employee, is even attempting to promote himself capable of running more work on the east coast. Another employee in New Jersey tested positive for dope and a former VP and General Superintendent conspired to have him placed on another contractors payroll on the project. That person continued to supervise work on the behalf of Perini all the while getting high on the job. The last we heard he was running work for Kraft Construction in Florida. Perini project staff meetings are conducted with alcohol being supplied by the contractor. Thats great, a bunch of "warm bodies" coupled with alcohol really increases the competence level on the project site! You truly have to experience it to understand and witness the incompetence and lousy work that is performed all in the name of schedule and ego. It is quite possible that Ron Tutor does not know what goes on at these lower levels of Perini but their president MK does, and he promotes it!