Saturday, June 11, 2016

From The Lake Worth Herald: A very good summation how we got to this point vis-à-vis the City's Casino

Below is part of this week's (6/9) Lake Worth Herald feature article on the faulty construction at the Casino structure. This is a concise timeline of events starting in 2010:

     In June 2010, the City entered a professional services agreement with REG Architects, Inc. to design the new Casino Building. In November 2010 (and as amended in June 2011), the City entered into a construction agreement with The Morganti Group, Inc. to construct the new Casino Building.
     Morganti secured a Public Construction Bond for its work with The Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania (Surety). During construction, the City notified REG and Morganti of various issues occurring at the Casino Building including, but not limited to, water intrusion through and/or around the doors on the second story (east elevation); water pooling on the second story deck; and, rusting surfaces.
     While some efforts were made to correct these issues, the City continued to experience the same and additional issues at the Casino. In 2013, after both REG and Morganti applied for final payment (which was withheld). The City retained construction attorney Michael Kennedy of Ciklin, Lubitz, Martens & O’Connell, P.A., to assist in resolving the issues.

The excerpt above gives you a good idea how long the City has been trying to resolve these problems. What's not been addressed in any significant way is the lost revenue having the second floor of the structure being vacant all this time. And then there's this problem on the first floor: