Rocky Mountain News
[2 articles together]

RTD won’t be bullied, Agency director asserts

Contractors target of get-tough policy

By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA
Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Regional Transportation District officials say they want to send a message that RTD can't be bullied. So they're considering whether to sue several contractors and consultants that they believe performed unsatisfactory work on the 16th Street Mall.

"RTD is famous for saying, ‘Who? Me?“ RTD general manager Ed Colby said.

“Those days are over. We're going to be proactive. RTD is going to be accountable to the taxpayers."

RTD sources said that among the firms the agency might challenge on the $70 million mall project were Hill International Inc., management consultants for the mall complex; Johnson-Hopson & Associates, architects of the Civic Center bus station at the east end of the mall; and B.B. Andersen Construction Co., general contractor for the station.

Colby terminated Hill and Johnson-Hopson last month when he said they allowed construction work at Civic Center to stop or slow repeatedly while haggling over construction changes.

He also made Andersen promise to finish Civic Center, at the intersection of Broadway and Colfax Avenue, by Oct. 25.

RTD officials filed suit Tuesday in Denver District Court against Weaver Construction Co. of Denver and the I.M. Pei architectural firm of New York City for their work in designing and installing the mall's granite paving.

Unforeseen flaws and cracks have appeared in an “unusually high" percentage of the mall's granite paving slabs, officials say. Replacement and repair of the slabs along the 13-block mall-could cost $2 million to $8 million, they say.

Colby said RTD is “evaluating potential suits against other firms but would not name the likely targets.

The granite-paving suit and the consideration of other suits is the first of many steps RTD will take to erase its reputation for being inefficient and irresponsible managers of major construction projects, he said.

“RTD is going to stand up for its rights," Colby said.

Civic Center, which is supposed to be open for passengers by early December, is at least eight months behind schedule. Its cost overruns, RTD officials said, are still being tabulated.

If it sues the companies it hired to build the mall, RTD would continue a long tortured history of litigation that has plagued [? word hard to read] the project since 16th Street was first torn up four years ago. Those suits and settlements include:
* A 1983 settlement with Weaver for $2 million for more than l00 construction changes as-well as the delivery of improperly cut granite.
* A $14.1 million lawsuit by Beaudoin Construction Co. of Denver for delays and cost overruns on the Market Street bus station.
* A $400,000 settlement last month with B.B. Andersen that included payment of union-level wages to Civic Center construction workers, despite a regulation to that effect on all federally funded construction projects.

Federal transit administrators, who have cited the mall as an example of how transit can galvanize a downtown area, said they will demand that [realistic?] building materials be used in future projects and that they and be kept within budget.

“We raised questions at the outset about the wisdom of granite," said Ralph Stanley; director of the-Urban Mass Transit Administration. “We are now requiring construction oversight in all federally funded projects and an independent review by our agency of projects costing $25 million and over.

You can demand a degree of excellence," Stanley said.

2nd Article:

Ribbon snipped for bus station at 1 Civic Center

Photo Rocky Mountain News Staff Photo by Frank Kimmel: A lone man [Joe Carle] in a manual wheelchair, back to the camera, watches as groups of people in suits cluster on an open plaza. A long ribbon crosses in front of a bus and one group surround a man who appears to be cutting the ribbon.
Caption reads: Protester Joe Carle watches bus station opening.



By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA
Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer


When the ceremonial ribbon was snipped and the yellow sash fluttered to the pavement, the beleaguered Civic Center bus station remained standing.

And more than a few Regional Transportation District officials joined in a collective sigh of relief.

“There have been a number of headaches (on the project),' RTD chairman Byron Johnson said Wednesday at the station's formal opening. “But we're not worried about the headaches from this day forward. We see this as a tremendous breakthrough."

Buses were supposed to be pulling out of the $20 million station, located at the intersection of Broadway and Colfax Ave., in April. But hundreds of complicated construction changes and bitter negotiations between contractors and consultants delayed its opening by six months.

Last month, RTD general manager Ed Colby fired the station's architect and management consultant when parts of the concrete building had been left unfinished for 14 months and others had been ripped out and replaced as many as four times.

Colby and his assistants took over management of the station themselves and demanded that the exterior be ready for Wednesday's ceremony and the arrival of President Reagan's mass transit director, Ralph Stanley.
Stanley used the occasion to announce $6.5 million in federal grants to RTD and the Denver Regional Council of Governments.

His brief speech was picketed by 10 handicapped demonstrators.

Some of the the demonstrators were arrested in Washington last week when they disrupted a national transit convention where Stanley as a featured guest.

"When you're putting on a party, nobody likes a crasher," said Wade Blank, who organized the silent vigil. We're here to make a statement."

Workers were, at the site until 10:30pm Tuesday scrubbing the bus turn around out front and planting 17 trees along the Broadway facade.

Created on

Thursday 11 July 2013

Posted on

Tuesday 10 May 2016

Tags

16th Street Mall, Ed Colby, Joe Carle, protesters, Ralph Stanley, ribbon cutting, UMTA - Urban Mass Transit Admin., Wade Blank

Albums

• Denver RTD

Visits

1430

Rating score

no rate

Rate this photo