Turner Construction is suing the University of Southern California for breach of contract, accusing the school of failing to pay $12 million owed for work on a new $130 million engineering building to be completed by the end of 2024 on its Los Angeles campus.
Turner worked on the seven-story, 116,000-square-foot IT building under a guaranteed maximum price and cost-plus contract. But after incomplete designs and numerous change orders, USC failed to pay Turner and numerous subcontractors for all the work done.
“For many of these commercial contractors,” Turner wrote in his complaint in Los Angeles state court, “this project represents the majority of their business at the time the work was performed. The commercial contractors, many of whom are small businesses, are experiencing significant hardship after not being paid for so long.”
A USC news outlet said the building, known as Ginsburg Hall, was originally estimated to cost $90 million.
Tim Cowell, Director of Spatial Planning and Design at the Viterbi School of Engineering, said “No expense was spared” in the planning and construction process of the building, aaccording to the USC news website,
USC has yet to file a response to the complaint, originally filed in November. In a statement to the student newspaper, the Daily Trojan, the university said it was “aware of the lawsuit” and was still reviewing it.
