I have a close friend who has been working with one of the subcontractors on this project, and we were discussing this last night, and it is clear this is an impending disaster unfolding in slow motion.
My friend tells me that the redesigns and change orders are endless, and that the project has passed the point where it would be cheaper to simply raze the existing building to the ground and build a new building from scratch.
The ongoing labor documentation and reporting requirements are a nightmare. Sub-Sub Contractors are holding up payment for everyone because they have failed to properly enter the data required by the City of Portland in their extremely ponderous computer system. Last week my friend finally got a paper report she needed from the State of Oregon after waiting for over two weeks, which she had to present to the City of Portland, who are collating and submitting labor and payroll data to several Federal Agencies.
In other words, a State bureaucrat held up my friend from reporting to a City bureaucrat who is reporting to several Federal bureaucrats, all of which are preventing my friend's company from being paid for work already performed.
When the project first kicked off last Spring, my friend told me that a group of over 30 "federal supervisors" did an "acceptance tour" of their company because they were being considered as a Sub-Contractor by the Prime. All that was missing was the Greyhound bus, which would have been far more efficient than the swarm of private vehicles that descended on my friend's company for a day.
The latest twist is that by Contract, the Subs are required to hire Sub-Sub Contractors for certain things, and of course they must be Women and/or Minority owned. The Sub-Sub they hired is a one man show, does business out of his van, has no office or staff, and has his "bookkeeper" girlfriend attempting to submit the paperwork that this job requires. Until she gets her act together and figures out the City of Portland's system, nobody from the Prime Contractor on down will be paid. Period.
And actual construction is just beginning. I'm hearing that the cost of relocation of all those Federal employees out of the building was not even considered in the original bid, or at the least, was significantly under estimated.
It sounds to me like this job is already significantly over cost, even before it starts, mainly from the horrendous and ponderous official reporting that is being required along with a continuing redesign that has little or nothing to do with what was originally approved, other than it is still an overhaul of a Federal Building.
This is stimulus gone terribly, terribly wrong, and will be worth keeping an eye on as time goes on. I have seen nothing close to an investigative report on this, but it is tailor-made for an episode of 60 Minutes five years from now.
Oregon and Washington *ping*, please...
Arrogant, incompetent, suicidal magicsterical bureaucracy strikes again.
Because the goverment NEVER runs out of money.
Actually it has gone exactly right. Look at all those government paper pushers it is keeping employed....."jobs saved", donchya know.
Government efficiency at work. The “stimulus” lines the pockets of bureaucrats, but does precious little for the private sector that makes the (disastrous) decision to join the project.
I can’t wait for Obamacare to kick-in...
And of course, the easiest and most cost effective solution, covering up the windows on the West side, was never considered.
I've seen this gimmick all to often. A fly-by-night comapny will make that claim, or organize itself by those "minority" guidelines just to satisfy the government bureaucrat PC mindset. Most of those companies aren't worth spit.