The general contractor for the Capitol Hill light rail station is suing Sound Transit for back compensation it claims was generated by the agency’s late adjustments to the facility’s design and a lack of coordination between interrelated construction projects.
University Link light rail started on March 19, 2016, with an $858,000 grand-opening celebration that included a ceremonial ribbon cutting outside the Capitol Hill station.
King County executive Dow Constantine spoke about the success of U Link — that it was six months ahead of schedule and $200 million under budget.
New York-based Turner Construction Company, which was selected as the general contractor/construction manager for the Capitol Hill station, claims in a lawsuit filed last week — and first reported by the Seattle Times — that poor management on the part of Sound Transit resulted in the company’s construction costs actually being more around $125 million — significantly higher than the $90 million.
Turner claims the transit agency has failed to compensate the company for all of its extra costs beyond $10 million. Those costs were incurred due to Sound Transit’s “changes, delays, constructive acceleration, coordination problems, design issues, and other breaches of Sound Transit’s contractual obligations,” according to the legal complaint.
“While Sound Transit has failed to compensate Turner for all of Turner’s extra costs that exceed $10 million,” the complaint states, “Sound Transit spent approximately $858,379 on its grand-opening celebrations for the U-Link extension.”
The Capitol Hill station is one of nine major construction projects tied to the U-Link extension project, and used the rarely used GC/CM method that made Turner both the general contractor and construction manager for the project. Sound Transit estimated the maximum allowable construct cost (MACC) at $90 million.
“Sound Transit involved Turner late in the design process, however, effectively precluding the full benefit of the anticipated input of the builder into the design process,” the complaint states.
Turner claims much of the delay and extra work the project experienced could have been avoided if Sound Transit had followed the GM/CM’s suggestions.
At 90-percent design, Turner claims Sound Transit and the company reached a MACC of $97,566,098, plus $11.45 million for negotiated support services.
The project opened in March 2016, not the initially anticipated August 2015 timeline, according to the complaint, due in part to a high number of changes initiated by Sound Transit, which included $4.7 million in additional staffing and support services.
Sound Transit spokesperson Kimberly Reason said the agency disagrees with the claims made in the lawsuit.
“These are taxpayer dollars, and taxpayers entrust us to serve as stewards of these tax dollars, and we don’t simply use tax dollars to pay out claims that we believe are without merit, and we do believe these claims are without merit,” Reason said. “The changes that we made, we compensated the contractor for, so we do not agree with the characterizations in the complaint.”
Sound Transit has several light rail expansion projects underway, including the Northgate Link Extension, East Link Extension to Bellevue and Redmond and planning for a West Seattle, Ballard and Tacoma extension.
The transit agency is awaiting a final decision from the Legislature that could affect its funding. The House has passed a bill to reduce the motor vehicle excise tax that regional voters approved in ST 3 (not counting Pierce Count) that would result in a $780 million loss. Democrats are working to backfill that funding, while Republicans are pushing a bill that would slash rates even more.
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