Just two years after the new $23 million Martin Luther King Jr. Apartments went up downtown, the complex is facing $1 million-plus in crumbling floor tiles.
Exactly why the floors are failing after such a short time is not clear. What is clear is neither the builder, the designer nor the city wants to take the hit for fixing them, so it appears one of the jewels of the Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment project is headed for litigation.
City Attorney Mike Rankin confirmed that the six-story apartment building at East Congress Street and North Fifth Avenue is experiencing a "big issue with the floor tiles," and the cost to fix the issue could extend into the seven figures.
"Clearly, there are defects either in the installation or in the design, which is causing the tile to fail and requiring their replacement," Rankin said. But neither the architect, Nelsen Partners, nor the contractor, Lloyd Construction, is willing to take responsibility for the defect.
People are also reading…
Lloyd Construction's attorney Brenda Lee declined to comment on any pending litigation, and Nelsen Partners did not return the Star's phone call.
Since an agreement couldn't be reached, Rankin said, the city must now consider its options as it tries to remedy the situation.
We need "to advise the council about the best advice in terms of how to recover and who to try to recover against," he said.
Because of the complex nature of the issue, and an understaffed attorney's office, Rankin said the city has hired an outside attorney to assist on the case.
"We are talking about ... construction contracting issues, implied warranty, indemnification that's between their individual contracts. And all those things get very complicated, very quickly," he said. "So we've hired outside counsel ... to bring that type of expertise to the case."
While there is a closed-door executive session to discuss this issue with the mayor and City Council scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, Rankin said he is going to ask for it to be delayed until June 26 because the outside counsel will not be available on June 19.
But one council member doesn't want to delay giving his opinion on the matter.
"We are the poster-child of a cluster screw-up," said Steve Kozachik. "It seems every time there's a screw-up, a lawyer gets rich in this town."
Kozachik said he's tired of every negotiation ending up in court and believes all sides should sit down at the table and work out an agreement that doesn't cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in litigation fees.
He said while he doesn't have the specifics of the MLK construction defect, he has never heard of a flawless design or construction project, and these types of matters happen all the time in the private sector without lawyers and judges.
"In the real world, people sit down and settle it," he said. "That's the way we should resolve this - where everybody admits to having a little bit of feet of clay, instead of having some judge fix it."
On StarNet: Find past Star special reports on Rio Nuevo at azstarnet.com/rionuevo
Contact reporter Darren DaRonco at ddaronco@azstarnet.com or 573-4243.
