Jefferson Performing Arts Center deal approved, pending OK of payment mechanism

Capping months of negotiations, the Jefferson Parish Council on Wednesday took the first step to accept a $9.75 million deal with contractor J. Caldarera Co. Inc. to finish the embattled Performing Arts Center in Metairie.

Capping months of negotiations, the Jefferson Parish Council on Wednesday approved a $9.8 million deal with contractor J. Caldarera Co. Inc. to finish the embattled Jefferson Performing Arts Center in Metairie. The deal is conditioned on the council also approving a change order that would authorize the payment.

A parish oversight committee is set to review that change order next week. The council could give final approval at its next meeting on June 26, the parish administration said.

Council members Wednesday unanimously cancelled a resolution by Chairman Chris Roberts that would have authorized the parish attorney to put Caldarera in default and to initiate a claim against the arts center insurer. In its place, both sides agreed to add $9.8 million and one more year to Caldarera's construction contract. (Read the agreement between the parish and the arts center contractor.) 

Both sides welcomed a deal to complete a project that was supposed to take two years to build when it began in 2007 and cost $26.5 million. Construction has gone on for four more years and the final cost, including the payments in the new deal, would reach $54.4 million.

"This is what we had said since December, that we were pursuing a global resolution that included a finite figure and a set time to complete the project," Parish President John Young said.

"This is long overdue," Roberts said.

The construction company's principal, Joe Caldarera, said he welcomed a change order that will pay for some work that has already been completed.

"You can write all the letters you want and do all the agreements you want to do in a construction contract, but you can't do so without memorializing what you're doing in an official change order," Caldarera said.

The change order includes payment for additional work and $6.6 million for "compensable time." That item includes delay charges, or fees the contractor billed for keeping materials and equipment on site past the expected time, among other costs.

The agreement, initialed Tuesday by Caldarera and attorneys for both sides, says the proposed payment would be the parish's last on the project. It also says Caldarera would face penalty fees if he doesn't finish the project within a year of receiving the first part of the payment.

Caldarera said he's been working on the project all along. He said he will finish it in less time than the new agreement grants.

The new agreement requires the parish to pay Caldarera $3 million when the council approves Change Order No. 8. The parish owes another $3.8 million by July 31 and a final payment of $3 million by Jan. 1.

Caldarera must finish the building a year after the initial $3 million payment, or face penalties. The deadline to complete the building would be in June or July 2014.

That'll be about seven years since parish officials broke ground at the arts center's site in LaSalle Park. Construction was supposed to be done by 2009, but Caldarera on Wednesday challenged the notion that the project is already four years late. He made reference to extra time added to the contract as changes were made along the years, including the one-year added by the agreement approved Wednesday.

"I'm contractually responsible, today, to finish the project 365 days from when I get the first payment of Change Order 8. That makes it June of next year, and we'll finish well before that," Caldarera said. The arts center, he added, "won't be late. It'll be actually, as long as this project has gone, it will actually be officially early."

Many residents will dispute that characterization. The budget-busting arts center has become a source of public ire and ridicule in social media, with residents criticizing the delays and rising cost.

The mess has also become a symbol of what critics see as the problems with contracting of professional services in the parish. Former Councilman John Lavarine Jr., whose district included the site of the project, once told legislative auditors that he selected designer Wisznia Associates because "they were the only firm to contact him regarding the center and that he was impressed by Wisznia's enthusiasm for the project," according to a 2011 audit.

Officials have said design problems were responsible for many of the projects' delays. Caldarera has said the delays were caused by changes made by the parish, mostly to address design errors.

The watchdog Bureau of Governmental Research and the Jefferson group Citizens for Good Government have repeatedly cited Lavarine's criteria to pick the designer as they push for changes to reduce political discretion in parish contracting.

Parish officials have said they were as frustrated by the project as their constituents. But Young, whose administration inherited the management of the project, said finishing the building was "the only prudent thing to do" considering taxpayers had invested $44 million already.

"The least bad option is to complete it," Young said. "It would not be prudent to just leave it there."

Both sides had long agreed that it would take a final $9.8 million to finish the project. But Young pointed to several passages on the deal that make it clear there will be no more change orders or payments beyond those included in this agreement.

The agreement also includes a provision that requires the parish to "defend, protect and hold harmless" Caldarera from any state legislative audit or review of the final change order and from "any civil action alleging a violation of the public bid law by use of an agreement" instead of only a change order.

Caldarera had maintained that the bid law allows adding money and time to a contract only through a change order, a point he repeated Wednesday. The "protection" clause was added to address that concern.

But Young said the clause obligates the parish to defend Caldarera only if there's a challenge to the parish using an agreement in conjunction with the change order. Young said the parish checked with the legislative auditor and the attorney general's office, and neither raised concerns.

Asked if the "protection" clause would apply if auditors wanted to examine the project's expenses Young said: "Absolutely not."