A Chicago -based concrete subcontractor has filed a federal demand of $ 40 million against Thornton Tomasetti, which provides structural engineering and protective design services for the project of the presidential center of Obama, claiming that racial discrimination caused project delays and cost expenses and put the subcontractor to the virgin of bankruptcy.
The subcontractor, II in a concrete, is part of the concrete group, a joint company of the project that also includes We O’Neill Construction Co. and Trice Construction Co.
The II’s initial price price in a JV subcontract was $ 27 million. According to the demand, damage II in one has suffered include the lost benefits of this project and the inability to obtain a security credit needed to bid linked projects, including public projects.
II, in one, claims that he was distinguished due to racial discrimination and “subject to baseless criticism and defamatory and discriminatory accusations” of New York Structural Engineer Thornton Tomasetti.
Demand claims that Thornton Tomasetti made an “inappropriate and non -early decision” to impose new rules on the receiving and tolerance requirements of receiving and required the subcontractor to submit to a “excessively rigorous and unnecessary inspection” in millions of losses. “”
“In a shocking and discouragement of events, the African American owner of a local construction company is itself and its company on the edge of forced closure due to racial discrimination by the structural engineer,” It states the demand.
Robert McGee, one of the owners of II in a concrete, also claims that Thornton Tomasetti presented a letter to the owner, the Obama Foundation, falsely indicating that the delays of the project and the cost expenses were the result of “subperformation and The inexperience of the concrete subcontractor. “
Other allegations about the expensive project problems were also apparently from the project general contractor, Lakeside Alliance. It is made up of construction companies Brown and Momen, Power & Sons Construction, Safeway Construction and Ujamaa Construction and Turner Construction.
These complaints include punctuality of Thornton Tomasetti’s Responsibility during construction administration, the quality of its drawings and structural specifications, the number of information requests during construction, the congestion of receiving and the requirements of joining.
In a note attached to the demand, Thornton Tomasetti states that Lakeside Alliance’s claims that the engineering firm “is in some way responsible for certain challenges during the specific construction of the project” are “faces incorrect and fully interned. “. In the note, the engineer states that construction problems “were all promoted unequivocally by the supply and inexperience of the specific subcontractor.”
Thornton Tomasetti, based in New York City, calls a necessary corrective work on the “broad and broad” project. Some of the articles the engineer says he had to review include damage to Caisson Dowels, eliminating a Mat pour due to heat problems, a lost Keyway in Tower Coris, receiving exposed, failure to install bars at the Drawings of the approved shop, pouring the garage wall of the entrance ramp to the wrong thickness and the failure of the ink beam bars to the correct elevation.
“As you can see, this is an excessive amount and an experienced contractor would not have had this amount of problems,” says the engineer’s note.
