Loring contractor sues the city

From the MWDN:
FRAMINGHAM — A Connecticut company hired to rebuild Loring Arena claims the city is illegally withholding payments for its work, breaching a roughly $6 million contract.
Lupachino & Salvatore, the general contractor for the project, is suing Framingham in Suffolk Superior Court to recover money it claims is due for labor and materials.
The company, based in Bloomfield, Connecticut, signed a $5,634,000 contract with Framingham in January 2017. Work included renovating the hockey rink and building a new front entrance with a handicapped-accessible elevator.
City officials have since approved at least three major contract amendments, adding close to $300,000 to the total cost.
Work was scheduled to conclude by mid-August 2018, but the reopening of the arena was delayed as the city pressed the contractor to fix deficiencies in the work. Officials blamed construction errors and poor workmanship by subcontractors for the delays.

After reviewing the requests, the city’s architect levied what the contractor called “baseless backcharges” against the company, bringing the allowable amount for change orders to $25,272, according to the suit.
“The grounds provided by (the architecture firm) for rejecting these change order proposals are unfounded and represent little more than an attempt by the Town to avoid its obligation to pay L&S for extra and changed work performed at the Town’s direction,” the complaint reads.
The company alleges it is owed a little more than $1 million for the work performed at Loring. It also accuses the city of breaching its contract and state laws regarding payment requests.
The lawsuit includes two other counts accusing the city of acting in bad faith, and asking a judge to consider ordering the city to pay the company for the reasonable value of its work at the project site, rather than the amount remaining under the contract. L&S pegged the value of its work to date at more than $7 million, putting the theoretical value due at more than $1.8 million.

In an interview Friday, Petrini said the city found a number of defects with the contractor’s work, including defective and incomplete installations and change orders requests that were untimely, overpriced or lacking sufficient documentation.

To protect taxpayers, Petrini said the city is withholding remaining money due under the contract. Officials have also considered invoking their coverage under a construction bond for the project, which guarantees the work can be completed in the event of failures by a contractor.
“We feel they should step to the plate and get the work done,” Petrini said.
Petrini said the city will respond to the lawsuit in court within the next several weeks. He said the city anticipates filing counterclaims against Lupachino & Salvatore.
“We’re not going to pay money that we don’t feel is properly owed,” he said.