Construction delays on South Park Bridge anger local businesses
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SEATTLE -- As the timeline unravels to replace the South Park Bridge, merchants isolated by the delay are lashing out at the builder, Kiewit Construction.
Napoli's has served up pizzas in South Park for decades, but ongoing bridge construction down the street is hurting the family-owned business.
"It's definitely been a struggle," Maria Porco said.
Porco says they count on loyal patrons to come in and keep them afloat, but the bridge closure cuts out other customers.
"A lot of the Boeing people can't get here as quickly as they need to," she said.
Adding to the troubles is an announcement by the contractor Kiewit that the timeline to reopen the span is being pushed back because of work delays.
Kiewit blames hard clay under the Duwamish River for slowing down excavation of the drawbridge support structures. That will likely drive up the price-tag on the $163 million project.
It's unclear if Kiewit, or taxpayers, will cover the costs.
"It has a lot of people nervous about it," said Sonny Andrade. "A lot of people are uneasy about it... and you never get a straight answer."
The KOMO 4 Problem Solvers broke the news about potential safety and cost issues involving another Kiewit project - the 520 replacement bridge. Internal documents described one engineer's belief that "corners were cut...in an attempt to save money, time and meet intense schedule pressures."
None of it sits well for Andrade, whose dry cleaning business struggles to meet delivery times without the bridge.
"Somebody gets a bad reputation in building something. You kind of hesitate to use them again," he says.
When the drawbridge shut down two and a half years ago, the promise was to have it re-opened by September 2013. New estimates push that timeline to early 2014.
Kiewit could face penalties for the delay, but that's little help to small business owners.
"We just got to hang on a little bit longer and hopefully people continue to support us," Porco said.
Neighbors and business owners are set to get more information at a meeting Thursday evening at 7 p.m. at their neighborhood center.
Napoli's has served up pizzas in South Park for decades, but ongoing bridge construction down the street is hurting the family-owned business.
"It's definitely been a struggle," Maria Porco said.
Porco says they count on loyal patrons to come in and keep them afloat, but the bridge closure cuts out other customers.
"A lot of the Boeing people can't get here as quickly as they need to," she said.
Adding to the troubles is an announcement by the contractor Kiewit that the timeline to reopen the span is being pushed back because of work delays.
Kiewit blames hard clay under the Duwamish River for slowing down excavation of the drawbridge support structures. That will likely drive up the price-tag on the $163 million project.
It's unclear if Kiewit, or taxpayers, will cover the costs.
"It has a lot of people nervous about it," said Sonny Andrade. "A lot of people are uneasy about it... and you never get a straight answer."
The KOMO 4 Problem Solvers broke the news about potential safety and cost issues involving another Kiewit project - the 520 replacement bridge. Internal documents described one engineer's belief that "corners were cut...in an attempt to save money, time and meet intense schedule pressures."
None of it sits well for Andrade, whose dry cleaning business struggles to meet delivery times without the bridge.
"Somebody gets a bad reputation in building something. You kind of hesitate to use them again," he says.
When the drawbridge shut down two and a half years ago, the promise was to have it re-opened by September 2013. New estimates push that timeline to early 2014.
Kiewit could face penalties for the delay, but that's little help to small business owners.
"We just got to hang on a little bit longer and hopefully people continue to support us," Porco said.
Neighbors and business owners are set to get more information at a meeting Thursday evening at 7 p.m. at their neighborhood center.
Good old Peter Knitwit: Bid low, get the job and pick out all the mistakes that the State engineers made. That way they can under bid contractors that would get the job done.
All the same company, why the heck do we keep using them?!
what the heck is wrong with WSDOT? sounds like they outsourced to the wrong company?
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you give a timeline, you finish the job - not really wanting to hear "unsure if the company or taxpayers will cover the costs" of delays. i certainly didn't delay anything - YOU pay it, Kiewit.
Again, the newspapers are reporting problems with construction projects ran by Kiewit.Â
If this trend keeps up, perhaps they should be denied the option of bidding on any
government projects.
Considering it's Kiewitt, yeah, not surprised they can't get it together. We pay them to do a job that they don't know how to do, then they screw up, then we start paying for their screw ups. Time to start finding a new contractor!
Didn't somebody do enough investigative test drills to know EXACTLY what was down there? And if the SDOT did the drilling did they provide all the data to Kiewit? Or did Kiewit do the test drilling and did not investigate enough, and chose to interpolate between sample cores?
Interesting when I left South Park in 2008, I remember the bridge price in the $100 million range.
The only thing that I can figure is that someone here at Komo either tried to get a job at Kiewit and was passed over, or worked for Kiewit in the past and got fired by them. No other reason to skew the news so badly against them. Take a look a little deeper people, the media is not your friend. If you really think there are payoff's in the world of big construction on public projects you're sadly mistaken. Kiewit has been around for a long time, they have built some of the most complex construction projects anywhere, General Construction has been in Seattle close to 100 years and worked on many of the bridges if not all major bridges in the Puget Sound. Get a grip.
@8675309 Ahh, another company troll. Seems everyone is out to get you, not only here in Seattle but down in California at another Kiewit job.
@SilverGryphon yep, the FBI even got involved with that one and found nothing wrong, suppose they were paid off too?
@8675309 You must be a Kiewit employee. I witnessed their shoddy work first hand at the Brightwater pump station in Bothel. When the county inspectors would call them out on it, Kiewit would strong arm the county into paying them more money to fix the mistakes. Also, General Construction wasn't owned by Kiewit until recently.
 @Richard Fitzwell  @8675309 There are more than a few people who have signed up and just posted to defend the company and/or WSODT in multiple stories here. They think they're being clever and that nobody has caught on.
@Glassman Like so many others on this site, you have no idea what you are talking about.
 @8675309     You have lost all credibility. You have NO facts to share, just rhetoric and BS.
@Just_Mike @Richard Fitzwell, when the news is skewed so badly against one side or the other is it not fair to defend what you believe in? Evidently you are one of the ones being fooled here, maybe you'll catch on to the sensationalized media. Many are clever and have "caught on"
@Richard Fitzwell, amazing story Rich, and no one blew the whistle on this? I find that hard to believe, maybe even a little bias or skewed on your part, very similar to these stories on KOMO.
One might wonder WHO in the D-State is getting kickbacks from Kiewit Construction.....
Anyone at problem solvers look at Paula Hammond's bank account lately??
Are Gregoir's palms greased??
Backroom cash...elections over dash??
Kiewit's on a roll. Why do they keep getting hired for these big projects in Washington? Time to see which officials bank accounts have gotten bigger once it was announced Kiewit was awarded these contracts.
 @Cooter_Brown ....see what happens when I walk away to watch the game on...same as you...
KOMO has it out for them for some reason but Kiewit its one of the best contractors when it comes to bridge building and infrastructure work. The problem is the state and local engineers that put these projects together don't give them enough thought. They dont run the proper soils reports or engineering that needs done. Instead they push the projects along them let the contractor take the blame because the media loves to hate on contractors. The south park bridge soil report with minimal holes drilled led one to believe the whole area was fine sand and it is actually hard clad which is a differing site condition unknown to the contractor who based their bid and schedule off what was provided to them. The 520 pontoons were inadequately designed by WSDOT engineers and now Kiewit is taking the blame.
If you want to believe everything the media says go ahead or think there are payoffs
@Reggie you're talking to a brick wall Reg.
Howsabout ya get no bridge?
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Ya had a bridge, now ya got no bridge, and yer entitled to a new bridge? Really?
How does that work? Consider yerselves lucky and quit yer whining.Â
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I'm pretty PO'd that I didn't win the lottery, but I don't whine about it. Is there anything else you'd like?
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@bobalouie Nice! It's getting late kiddo. Time to go to bed and let the adults have the computer.
Kiewit has gotten a lot of government contracts- too many??
Originally the time period was to be from May, 2011 through May of 2013 per the sign that was initially placed by the bridge. Then it was September of 2013 and now it is Spring of 2014. It is truely amazing that anyone would actually believe that a public works project such as this bridge would come in on time and on or under budget.
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 @HullenbeckCowl Don't worry about it - spokesman is a job you will never have.