The public agency that built the David L. Lawrence Convention Center provided lax oversight of contractors and rushed a project fraught with cost overruns, Allegheny County Controller Mark Patrick Flaherty said Wednesday.
"Right from the start, I think the project had some concerns and issues of trying to cram a $390 million building into a $215 million budget," Flaherty said after conducting a review of the Sports & Exhibition Authority project.
Stephen Leeper, who ran the city-county authority until 2004, disputed Flaherty's conclusions.
"I respectfully disagree with the controller's assessment," said Leeper, now executive director of 3CDC, an economic development agency in Cincinnati. "Our oversight was anything but lax."
Flaherty reviewed the authority's oversight of construction and how it handled three structural failures since 2002. In February 2007, a loading dock partially collapsed onto 10th Street, forcing the building to close for a month.
The review determined that SEA officials were not realistic in budgeting for the project, causing problems during construction that triggered the cost overruns and delays, Flaherty said.
Construction contracts did not include penalties for the contractors if they were unable to complete the work on time and on budget, Flaherty said. Pressure to open the building on time because conventions had been pre-booked contributed to the problem.
Leeper said the cost of the project escalated only because officials improved the building's design. The decision to rely on a contract that placed risk on the agency, rather than the contractor, was made by the state Department of General Services, Leeper said.
The state helped pay for the convention center.
Leeper said he would have preferred agreements that placed more pressure on the contractors to meet deadlines and budgets but was obligated to follow the state's wish, he said.
A message seeking comment from the state agency was not returned.
The 2007 beam collapse was not the first problem at the building.
Another beam located 60 feet away dislodged in 2005. Authority officials called in contractors to investigate the cause but did not reveal the problem to Pittsburgh and Allegheny County officials until two years later.
The authority should have closed the building in 2005 and brought in independent investigators to inspect the problem and analyze the building, Flaherty said.
A Moon iron worker, Paul Corsi, died during construction in 2002, when part of the steel framework fell. In that incident, incorrect nuts were used to connect steel parts, investigators found.
A team of engineers hired by the authority last year determined that faulty bolt connections caused the 2005 and 2007 collapses. A sliding bolt connection jammed in February 2007 during a period of freezing temperatures, breaking the connection and allowing the beam to fall.
Flaherty hopes the impact of his review helps ensure the authority's construction of a new Penguins arena is handled properly.
"We just don't want these mistakes to happen again," he said. "That was the whole reason for the review. We have to make sure we don't make mistakes in the future."
