Last month, accounts of more budget overruns, accusations of fraud and damning revelations of incompetence darkened the ongoing and much troubled story of the deconstruction of the former Deutsche Bank tower at 130 Liberty St. Now more than four years behind the schedule that officials set for it in 2004, the building, fatally damaged on 9/11, is set to come down next January. 

MONTHS LATE, MILLIONS OVER BUDGET
Lower Manhattan Development Corp. officials announced on June 11 that they may need as much as $35 million more in public money to finish tearing down the building. The agency authorized sinking another $20 million into its contract with Bovis Lend Lease, the project’s general contractor, raising the total cost of the job to more than $173 million. Another $10-15 million will need to be authorized by the end of the summer.

Avi Schick, the agency’s executive director, said he was hoping to fund the increases with a complex combination of proceeds from insurance claims and federal grant money.

“Over the next several weeks, we’ll have to develop a strategy [for payment],” Schick said.

If that fails, the LMDC would need to request additional federal funding, a process that would take months to complete and could delay the building’s demolition even longer.

The deconstruction is already three months behind the schedule revised for it in January. In December, agency officials said the building could be completely decontaminated in April, and that the demolition would be done by mid-October.

But work has been stopped on the site at least six times since Jan. 1 for a range of mishaps and equipment failures, including twice in June when machinery on the site overheated.

The agency’s latest schedule predicts that the building will be decontaminated by the end of July and dismantled by next January.

BOVIS EYED FOR FRAUD
LMDC board members voted unanimously in favor of the increase for Bovis despite revelations of an investigation into the company’s billing practices on five major projects around the city, including the Deutsche Bank deconstruction and parts of the build-out of the September 11 Memorial and Museum. Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell’s office demanded that Bovis turn over payroll and billing documents related to the two projects at the World Trade Center site, as well as other large projects.

“We have directed our attorneys to find out what they can about the scope of the investigation,” Schick said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office would not say whether charges have yet been filed against the company or any of its employees. James Abadie, head of Bovis’ New York operations, resigned from the company suddenly on June 15.

“Bovis Lend Lease’s operations and strong commitment to ongoing projects in New York City will not be affected by the change in leadership in the New York office,” said Mary Costello, a Bovis spokeswoman, regarding Abadie’s departure from the company.

 

THE COST OF BOTCHED INSPECTIONS
A 35-page report, released by the city’s Department of Investigation, concluded that a former city Department of Buildings official ignored a crucial warning from one of his inspectors that might have saved the lives of two firefighters during the disastrous Aug. 18, 2007, fire at the building. The report also found that the Fire Department failed to inspect the tower every 15 days once demolition began, a violation of city law.

The report was aimed at identifying administrative breakdowns connected to the fire, which killed firefighters Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia.
Two months before the fire, then-Department of Buildings supervisor Robert Iulo told an inspector not to report finding a breach of the building’s water standpipe, investigators said. Iulo, the man in charge of the DOB’s daily inspections of the building, also never ordered workers to test the pipe after it was repaired.

Had the test been performed, a larger breach in the pipe would almost certainly have been discovered in the basement of the building, and the firefighters’ deaths might have been prevented.

“Not conducting the pressure test was a serious missed opportunity,” investigators said.

It was unknown whether criminal charges would be filed against Iulo, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said. Iulo retired from the DOB in February after being slapped with disciplinary charges for failing to properly inspect the tower and to adequately train inspectors. None of the inspectors assigned to the 130 Liberty St. job had any experience with demolition projects, according to the city’s report, nor had they received training specific to the tower. One inspector told investigators that she did not understand how the standpipe system worked.

Investigators also faulted FDNY officials for not inspecting the tower every 15 days, beginning in March of 2007. Capt. Peter Bosco, the commanding officer of the Engine 10 firehouse on Liberty Street at the time and the person ultimately responsible for conducting the inspections, reportedly told investigators that he “thought that it was not a ‘hard and fast rule.’”

“Clearly, Capt. Bosco had no appreciation for his responsibilities as per 130 Liberty Street,” investigators said.

Bosco, one of seven fire officials reprimanded in the wake of the report, was permanently relieved of his command of the Liberty Street firehouse on June 24.

The report said Bosco received a memo from his battalion chief dated August 7, 2007—11 days before the fire—imploring him “to take every precaution at 130 Liberty Street.”

The memo concluded, in bold type: “THE ONLY SAFE ASSUMPTION IS TO ASSUME THE WORST.”