The Capitol Visitors Center project is way overdue and overbudget because Congress keeps tacking on jobs without awarding extra time, the project’s chief contractor said Friday.
“The contract has grown by about 80 percent. The contract period that they’re requesting has grown by zero percent,” said Ted Baker, vice president of Manhattan Construction Co., which was awarded the $200 million-plus contract. “Everybody is working awfully hard down there.”
Government Accountability Office Director Bernard Ungar has blamed Manhattan for most of the project’s woes.
The center is supposed to protect the Capitol by creating a grand entrance away from the rotunda. It’s alsosupposed to serve as a museum for the seat of the world’s oldest democratic republic. When ground was broken for the center in 2002, the center was supposed to cost $265 million and open by January 2005.
Ungar told a Senate panel this week that the center wouldn’t open until early 2008 and would cost more than $600 million.
“As far as I’m concerned, they’re responsible for the catastrophe,” Ungar told The Examiner Friday. “They said they were going to be ready and they weren’t.”
Ungar said that Manhattan hasn’t done a good enough job of supervising its subcontractors. One example is in the fire system, which has delayed the project by weeks, he said. The subcontractor twice altered the fire system’s design after agreeing to a different design. Each time, the fire marshal has sent the subcontractor back to the drawing board, Ungar said.
“It was a horror story,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s the government’s fault. But that has to be worked out among the lawyers.”
Baker, the Manhattan executive, bristled at Ungar’s version of events.
“Mr. Ungar is certainly not involved in the day-to-day of building the project,” Baker said. “These are his opinions. There are other opinions.”
