Whipped Cream Difficulties

A little more than a year ago, I noted the saga of the Turner-Roberts Recreation Center in east Austin: built in 2008, developed structural problems in 2009, closed in 2011 while the city considered how to fix those problems.

Estimates at the time were $2.7 million and seven months to repair, or 10 months and $4.1 million for a tear-down and rebuild.

Today’s Statesman updates the story:

The price tag to rebuild and repair an East Austin recreation center, plagued by structural problems soon after it opened four years ago, has reached $6.4 million — about $1 million more than the original cost to build it.

The city is going to pay $3 million of that cost. The rest will be picked up by the three companies that designed and built the center.

All told, the city will have spent $8.6 million on the building.

The city has also spent another $3.1 million to open a “9,100-square-foot ‘multi-purpose facility; next door that contains a gathering space, restrooms and a kitchen — similar to a rec center.”

I noted above that the three firms involved in design and construction are paying $3.4 million of the cost. That’s based on a settlement between those firms and the city, which didn’t require that the firms admit fault:

City officials wouldn’t provide a copy of the settlement this week and wouldn’t say how much each company had to pay. The American-Statesman has filed an open records request asking for the settlement.

And where’s the city’s share of the money coming from?

The city will pay the $3 million that the settlement didn’t cover using certificate of obligation bonds, which don’t require voter approval and are paid back using property taxes.

Those bonds were also used to pay for the new multi-purpose facility.

Something stinks here, and I don’t think it is the trash I need to take out. (Just to be safe, though, I’m going to do that anyway.)

Edited to add: Well, that’s settled. It wasn’t the trash.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2013 at 1:11 pm and is filed under Austin, Clippings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.