Walsh Construction told a California state court judge last month that the lawsuit to mediate its claims over an Orange County light rail project, known as the OC Streetcar—had produced a settlement of some claims under which the county agreed to pay the contractor nearly an additional $50 million
With work nearing completion on the new 4.15-mile line connecting downtown Santa Ana and Garden Grove, Walsh’s attorneys asked the judge to postpone a ruling on any unresolved claims for disputed costs until the project was done so all costs could be accounted for.
“Recent major agreement efforts have resulted in an agreement [for the county] to pay the contractor” nearly $50 million, Walsh’s lawyers wrote to Judge Nathan Vhan Vu in an April 22 letter.
In 2018, Chicago-based Walsh Construction Co. beat out competitors for the prime contract at a price of $220.5 million. After work began in 2020, the Orange County Transportation Authority began issuing the first of several hundred change orders, raising the project’s price tag to $400 million and granting Walsh an extension of time until February 2027, Walsh’s lawyers told the judge.
The lawsuits began in 2022. Walsh filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against the authority, alleging that the contractor was owed money and that the design provided to him wass inedible
Walsh claimed the authority’s failures included incomplete design, varying conditions, failure to acquire all properties and coordinate project plans with government jurisdictions. The “contract value of the design and project management teams has increased by 100%,” Walsh said, but the authority has been unable to grant time extensions and has withheld payment.
Four years later, it seems that the spirit of conciliation has taken hold.
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“The parties are actively cooperating,” Walsh’s attorneys said in their letter to the judge, and are “working diligently to resolve the remaining claims and complete the project as soon as possible.”
In addition to the payment of nearly $50 million, the tentative settlement created a prepaid allowance that would be used to resolve disputes, the lawyers wrote.
