"D.C. deadline comes with price tag" (vol 8 issue 18, p6) by Brent Baird

When big projects have big budgets and big exposure; deadlines are paramount. Construction companies, teams, and cities stand to lose a great deal if projects lingers unfinished and are delayed with no apparent cause or due to miss management. No city, or team wants to be known as the one that could not finish there project and move into their venue on time. No team executive wants to even think about the loss of confidence by sponsors or loss revenues if pre-sold tickets have to be refunded and signage is not being seen by the fans because of delays in opening a facility on time.

This is what the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission is trying to prevent with some rather steep penalties if the construction of the stadium gets behind schedule. The commission is trying to write into the contract that Clark Construction Group will face $100,000 a day fines if the project is not done by the March 1, 2008 deadline. The fine would be capped at $10 million if the project is delayed for a longer period of time. This fine would be a major blow to total profit to the construction company from the overall project expected to be around $535 million. The contract would exclude circumstances that the construction company is unable to prevent.

The commission still has to finalize the purchase of the property and there is the chance of legal issues may arise in the process. Many of these factors are going to make the time table very tight for the construction company.

While I understand the need to make arrangements to prevent the needless delays there are a few considerations that need to be thought through. The commission must be fair to the construction company due to the date in which they are allowed to start work. It would be wrong of the commission to back the company into an unrealistic time table that could cause unwanted problems. Unrealistic deadlines and the pressure to meet them often led to accidents, lapses in safety judgment, the less than prefect workmanship.

The team must now take some considerations into effect. With the recent hurricane destruction and the rebuilding effort that will be placed on that region, there stand a very good chance that there will be shortages of certain building materials or the back up of filling orders. Many companies will focus on the rebuilding of the gulf coast. These may all be unavoidable delays that should not fall on any of the parties involved.

On any normal project, when all things have fallen into place and all things being normal, and on a project in which so much attention is focused in the D.C. area, I would say that this request should not be a big issue, even considering the large amount of money. However for this particular project this is not the case.

It now may come to a point when all parties will have to take a long hard look at the expected time table and see if it is realistic, and how that will effect each their plans.