Jefferson Parish officials Wednesday chose to continue pursuing a deal with Performing Arts Center contractor Joe Caldarera, instead of moving toward placing him on default
Jefferson Parish officials Wednesday chose to continue pursuing an agreement with Performing Arts Center contractor Joe Caldarera instead of placing him in default. The Parish Council made the decision after the most extensive public discussion to date between Caldarera and officials regarding the embattled project.
The debate gave residents a peek at the jaw-dropping blunders in the building's design: Not enough smoke hatches and stairs, roofing gaps that would have led to flooding, and an elevator that would have stopped 2 feet short of the top floor because, well, it hit the roof.
"You had to jump to get out of the elevator," Caldarera said, calling the original plans not buildable. The parish settled a lawsuit against the project's original architect, Wisznia Associates, last year.
The council unanimously postponed a vote on a resolution that would have authorized Parish Attorney Deborah Foshee to put Caldarera in default, buying time for the parish to complete negotiations with Caldarera's attorney, St. Charles District Attorney Joel Chaisson.
"These changes take time and consume resources. They extend the project," Caldarera said of the 508 design changes to the arts center. But he added, "You can't just stop a project when you have a huge investment out there."
Foshee also asked council members to let negotiations progress.
"I'm not here to tell you put him in default," she told council members, referring to Caldarera. "I could put on a PowerPoint presentation that could refute every point Joe made . . . but that would not be in our best interest."
The council meeting capped a week in which parish officials and Caldarera had publicly argued over who is to blame for the mess at the performing arts center, being built in Metairie's LaSalle Park. Construction, which began in 2007, was supposed to take two years and cost $26 million. Four years beyond that deadline, it's still not complete, and taxpayers have shelled out $44 million and counting.
That tab will rise under the agreement that the parish and Caldarera are negotiating. The deal would pay the contractor $9.75 million to pay for work he has already completed and for all additional work to finish the project. The deal would require Caldarera to finish the job within a year after he gets the payment, although after the meeting Caldarera said the needed construction will take less time.
Caldarera maintained that he is actually owed $12.7 million for work he's already completed, and that in agreeing to be paid $9.75 million he's giving the parish a discount of at least $3 million, considering the job still isn't done.
"What's best for the taxpayers? Finish the project by accepting a $3 million reduction we have offered," Caldarera said.
Foshee said the $9.75 million in the proposed agreement is the amount parish in-house engineers can substantiate.
"Mr. Caldarera believes he's entitled to much more money than we do," she said.
In his presentation to the council, Caldarera said the parish has no grounds to put him on default, and that voting for a resolution invoking default would torpedo the negotiations with the parish.
Those talks began last year, as Parish President John Young pushed for what he called "a global resolution" including a final payment for the contractor and a hard date for completion. Young repeated those requirements Wednesday.
An agreement will now depend on the parish's ability to persuade the Legislature to amend this year's capital budget. The change is needed to let state officials tap part of the $6.7 million approved last year for the arts center and use it to reimburse the parish for past expenses on the project. The arts center is officially a state project that the parish is administering and will run after construction is finished.
Parish officials had been counting on the state money to finish the project, but the state has only approved $2.9 million of the $6.7 million for payment. The state is holding the rest in great part because it refuses to pay for delay charges -- or fees paid to the contractor for equipment and workers kept at the site longer than expected.
Chaisson, a former president of the state Senate, said the state agency administering payments is supporting the needed budget change, but Chaisson said he has not discussed it with lawmakers yet. Young said the parish would work to get the change passed this session. Budget bills are among the last ones approved in the session, which this year ends on June 6. That means the payment to Caldarera might not take place until late next month, pushing the deadline to complete the arts center into next summer.
That would leave parish officials exposed to public scorn for the project for at least another year. Council members face growing pressure to finish the work, as advocates of contracting changes continue to cite the mess at the arts center as an argument for reducing political discretion in parish contracting.
Council members made clear Wednesday that they are frustrated by the project's delays.
"We hear . . . what's going on with the white elephant on Airline Highway?" said Councilman Paul Johnston, whose district includes the arts center site. "We don't want to hold (construction), we just want to finish it."