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The Harmon tower at CityCenter is shown while under construction in July 2009 on the Las Vegas Strip.
Published Friday, July 24, 2009 | 2:22 p.m.
Updated Saturday, July 25, 2009 | 1:58 a.m.
Related Documents
Sun Archives
- Company that missed CityCenter flaws might face suspension (7-24-2009)
- Harmon inspector lacked experience (7-1-2009)
- Editorial: Easing up on oversight (6-14-2009)
- CityCenter inspectors told: Easy on the paper (6-11-2009)
- Harmon flaws haven’t brought big fallout (5-27-2009)
- Perini redirects blame for errors at Harmon (2-9-2009)
- Adaptation or ‘disaster’?: Depends on your view of the Harmon (2-8-2009)
- County wants proof CityCenter structures are free of defects (2-6-2009)
- Watchers were not watched (1-15-2009)
- How did CityCenter tower flaws persist? (1-8-2009)
- MGM Mirage cancels CityCenter condo project (1-7-2009)
- CityCenter hotel project slowed by corrective work (9-17-2008)
Beyond the Sun
The discovery of 15 floors of major construction flaws at CityCenter’s Harmon Hotel last year shut down the project for a time, forced MGM Mirage to redesign the building and left numerous questions in its wake.
Among them: Why had the county-approved private inspectors hired by MGM Mirage to inspect the Harmon issued numerous false reports stating that the reinforcing steel was according to plans? Were they knowingly not doing their jobs, or merely incompetent?
Responding to a county request for judgment, an administrative hearing officer this week became the first to officially weigh in on that subject. He said the inspectors hired by Converse Consultants didn’t simply err accidentally, but rather must not have been conducting thorough inspections even though signing documents saying they were.
Converse Consultants could be punished with a suspension of up to six months from taking on new projects in Clark County, according to the county building department’s interpretation of the hearing officer’s order, released Friday afternoon.
The proposed suspension is the latest fallout of the major construction flaws discovered a year ago at the Harmon. Converse has 10 days to appeal.
An engineer on the project found that subcontractor Pacific Coast Steel had wrongly installed 15 floors of reinforcing steel. Neither private inspectors employed by Converse nor county monitors reported the problems.
The discovery, coupled with the recession, prompted MGM Mirage to cut the planned height of the building in half, cancel 200 planned condo units and delay the project.
In April, Pacific Coast Steel agreed to pay $14,105 in administrative fees to the Nevada Contractors Board in a settlement after an investigation. The subcontractor did not admit fault.
Project owners in the county are required to hire approved special inspectors to oversee complicated construction practices.
Converse, a company headquartered in Monrovia, Calif., was hired by MGM Mirage to oversee much of the construction at the $8.4 billion CityCenter project.
After a hearing on June 30, hearing officer Charles Thomas wrote that he had seen sufficient evidence that Converse inspectors Scott Edberg and Joseph Glenn Laurente had falsified 62 daily reports to say they had observed and approved reinforcing steel work at the Harmon.
The reports stated that “all reinforcements were verified in accordance with sheet/details listed above for bar sizes, grades, lap lengths, clearances and quantities prior to placement,” Thomas said.
Although Edberg and Laurente had issued reports noting problems on some levels of the Harmon, they issued no reports indicating structural steel problems on floors 5 through 20, Thomas said.
Therefore, he said, “Converse’s assumption that the assigned Special Inspectors erred in their individual inspections is not correct.” Instead, the inspectors must not have been fulfilling their duty to thoroughly inspect the rebar installations.
Thomas also found that Edberg and Laurente’s superiors at Converse did not train and supervise them properly.
Laurente has told county officers that his Harmon work was the first time he ever read construction plans, despite having received a degree in civil engineering.
Converse attorney Greg Gilbert said in an interview Friday that the company has “a great deal of disputes with the factual findings” but said Converse has not decided whether to appeal.
Converse disagrees with Thomas’ interpretation of the training Converse was required to provide its inspectors, Gilbert said.
Converse attorney Melissa Orien added that Thomas had ignored key evidence in determining that Edberg and Laurente were not thorough in their inspections.
In a preliminary decision after reviewing Thomas’ findings, Development Services Director Ron Lynn said, Converse could be suspended for a maximum of six months. The company could still conduct inspections on projects it is working on, with increased monitoring by the county building department during that time, Lynn said.
Lynn said Converse could be reinstated after the Harmon problems are fixed, after all CityCenter sites where Harmon performed work are reinspected by another agency, and after the county reviews the company’s special inspection program.
Neither Converse attorneys nor county officials could say how many projects Converse is contracted to inspect.
Despite the construction slowdown in the county, Lynn said in an interview that disallowing Converse to take on new work for six months would be a “significant hit” for the company, which he says is fair given the seriousness of the allegations.
“I feel there’s a managerial deficiency here as well as direct inspector deficiency,” Lynn said.
Edberg has been removed from a list of qualified county inspectors and no longer works for Converse. Lynn agreed with Thomas in ordering his qualifications to be a special inspector revoked.
Laurente was removed as a reinforcing steel inspector but still is approved as a soils inspector in the county. Thomas recommended he be suspended from serving as an inspector. Lynn said Laurente could be reconsidered for approval after he passes a structural plans review class and retakes a certification exam.
Converse and the inspectors have until Aug. 1 to file an appeal. If they appeal, the suspensions won’t kick in until after the appeal is resolved by Lynn following another hearing.
Edberg and Laurente could not be reached for comment.
Yes, suspend the license of Converse Consultants for a long time...like forever.
The hearing examiner's very polite, technical, not-inflammatory supports the basic view that Converse Consultants is not doing a good job "being the County's eyes and ears" at least as to inspection of the installation of reinforced concrete.
What is very galling, is that Converse Consultants is not a Las Vegas company, or even a Nevada company, but instead a California company. The "inspectors" they hired are not licensed engineers in either state. From a public safety point of view, both of those facts are reprehensible.
Equally reprehensible is the Hearing Examiner's finding iss that there is no evidence to support Converse Consultant's claims that its two inspectors actually inspected 18 link beams on each of 15 floors of the Harmon Towers, despite having filed reports saying the did so. How could he tell? The reports said the rebar work inspected matched the relevant plans, but in fact it did not. So where were these two inspectors, and what were they doing, while 15 floors of the Harmon Tower were being built? The Hearing Examiner hasn't figured that out.
In California, the reality is that most construction consultants don't carry more than $1 Million in liability insurance. In contrast, when the Northridge Earthquake occurred, there were massive collapses of "reinforced" concrete high rises, department stores and parking structures throughout the San Fernando Valley and West L.A. Fortunately, no one was hurt, because the earthquake occurred before people got to work.
It is a very frightening thought that Clark County doesn't have inspectors qualified to inspect the complicated details of high rise or parking struction construction in Las Vegas. Based on the Hearing Examiners' report, it is even more frightening that Clark County hires "inspection" companies who don't hire licensed engineers to do complex inspections; who don't train their employees on the details of what they're inspecting; don't supervise ALL of their employees who are doing inspections; don't audit all of their employees inspections to check for errors; and then just run and hire lawyers to defend them when the inspectors' and inspection company's actions create a public safety risk and cause a local company to lose millions of dollars in construction of a building's foundation, to bear 40 stories of weight, and then through inspection failures, the value of that strengthened foundation is lost, to the tune of 20 stories of potential structure.
The way to make this problem right is for the County to hire ONLY construction inspection companies who are headquartered and licensed in Nevada; who are managed by Nevada licensed engineers; whose supervisors are Nevada licensed engineers; and whose inspectors are given the best training possible, concerning commercial structure design and construction, and who are tested and certified by examinations given by the County. Truly, Nevada requires more stringent education and testing for high school students, in requiring them to pass the Mathematics Proficiency Exam, than Converse Consultants and the County required for the two inspectors who scr@wed up, big time, at the Harmon Tower.
Many tourists still remember all of the deaths and horror resulting from the MGM Grand fire and the Hilton fire. Those fires were caused by bad construction design and dangerous materials. The whole purpose of Nevada beefing up its building and fire codes was to rebuild tourists' confidence. If the County is not doing proper inspections to protect the public, and not hiring competent companies responsible to Nevada licensing authorities to do those inspections, then the public health and safety is seriously jeopardized.
Few of us who lived in the San Fernando Valley or West L.A. will forget what all of the collapsed "reinforced concrete" high rise and midrise towers, parking structures and department stores looked like when they collapsed in the Northridge Earthquake. Few of us who saw the airplanes crash into the World Trade Center Towers will forget what they looked like as they collapsed.
If, God forbid, we had a collapse of a new high rise tower in Las Vegas, in the "tourist areas", the national press would immediately blame Clark County/Las Vegas' lax building inspection history. The number of tourists who would have confidence in sleeping in a Strip hotel tower "built under a crooked building inspection regime" would significantly diminish.
Las Vegas' economy cannot afford that folks. Build it right, or don't build it at all.
SUSPENSION??? Why hasn't the county fired this firm? Who's in bed with whom?
THUMPER you silly little rabbit,you sound like a past disgruntled ccbd employee,RON LYNN IS NOT CORRUPT neither is the management who hired him.CCBD is the best in U.S.A,YOU NEED TO GET PAST KESSLER REPORT,it is old news,high rises in clark county are very safe,you need to get off clark countys ass since you seem hell bent on getting RON LYNN.
From those pictures of installed rebar, it sure looks like the work was done by a contractor from California allright......
More like ...BAJA California !!!!!
hay thumper you claim you worked on high-rises since 1993,well which bldgs.are unsafe,how about one permit#,or one high rise name to back your claims of first hand knowledge,or were you part of the problem who hid work from inspectors.I suggest you put up or shut up,stop riding the backs of other peoples printed articles,Clark County should find out who you are,so you can help since you saw so much with your own eyes,since you are trying to scare tourists and cause loss of jobs,perhaps you should be able to back allegations.Again only inspector fired per Kessler report was rehired with full back pay and legal fees due to false allegations of KESSLER REPORT.
WHO CARES ABOUT THE FLAWED 15 FLOORS, HOW ABOUT THE FLAWED 1500 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CONSTRUCTION WORKERS WORKING AT CITY CENTER ????send them back to mexico and hire legal american citizens 1111
Why send the Mexicans back when they do a better job and work harder than the us, the Americans. Stop blaming the Mexicans you broke ass. Just reality
THUMPER YOU are confused first you state you have worked on most high rises built since 1993,now you say you are blackballed and do not reside in Clark County but you know all about inspection problems occuring on bldgs.under construction now.You know only what you read in newspapers,again i ask you for the safety of the public please give name of any bldg.in CLARK county unsafe to occupy,i am sure the owners would love to see it in print,and talk to you about it,have some balls, slander may cost you lots of money.
Thumper you have failed again to answer which bldgs.are unsafe,you got nothing to back your claims.You dance all around,afraid to answer what you insist you know.Instead you write about my computer skills,your claim to fame is your a whistleblower/snitch/coward,that must make your family proud.YOU ARE NOT WORTH THE AIR YOU BREATHE,A SNITCH IS LOWEST FORM OF LIFE.
retro.obsessed "HAS" to be an illegal, pack your bags and get out !!!!!!!!!
OH BY THE WAY>>>>TAKE YOUR ILLEGAL BUDDIES WITH YOU>>>AND STAY IN MEXICO WHERE YOU BELONG !!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S STRANGE YOU KNOW ENGLISH,MOST OF YOU ILLEGALS KNOW ONLY SPANISH !!!!!!!!!!!