OT: Hartford reaches deal to finish baseball stadium.

[Danzz]

Centerplan is a very competent company and has a ton of other commercial projects going on. They will continue to operate.

This project was probably over their heads and out of their normal scope of work. I tend to believe the city and Centerplan share equal blame in this fiasco. I've worked on sport complex construction site that started from scratch there are always issues and delays and a majority of the time it's not the contractors fault

The owners have very deep pockets as the result of selling a manufacturing company and some condo projects. Their commercial projects have lost money. They are over their heads with a ballpark and if they actually tried to build the hotel, it would have been an even bigger disaster .
1) They agreed to an unrealistic schedule.
2) They fired the only manager that had experience on a commercial project of this size and decided to manage the project themselves.
3) They never had anywhere near enough sub contractors working on the project.
4) Some sub contractors waked off the job over payment issues.

 

[TRest]

Hartford and their planners deemed them competent enough to allow them to bid on and award them the contract. You have to prove yourself competent and capable of doing the work with proof of past work/projects, the whole 9 to bid on these contracts. They don't just let anyone bid on these projects

Hartford is just as much to blame for allowing their first attempt at a ballpark

I don't recall, but I don't think there was an open bidding process. Which is so Hartford.

 

[husky210]

Centerplan should have hired a sub to construct the stadium. The problems started very early on when the delivery of steel was late. That set everything back and they never caught up.

The rest of the DoNo plan was all in their wheel house. They could probably do a great job on the rest of the project but that ship has sailed.

Even with the set backs, I suspect the ball park will be a very big success. It's the rest of the project that is now sidelined and perhaps crippled.

Hiring "subs" is what every GC/Developer/whatever the hell you want to call them does. They usually only "self perform" a small portion of the work if any at all.

 

[husky210]

I don't recall, but I don't think there was an open bidding process. Which is so Hartford.

If i recall this was some sort of Design Build Procurement? Which means it doesnt necessarily have to be low bidder. All of the firms interview before a panel, provide resumes of key staff, present a preliminary vision for the project and eventually a price. They are graded on a number of categories and one is selected based on the "whole package". So if it was a DB contract then hartford deemed them competent.