Settlement reached in Child Development Center lawsuit
Special to the Guardsman
NEWS BRIEF
By Kira George
A settlement agreement in City College’s 4-year-old lawsuit against the contractor and subcontractors who built the Child Development Center was announced last month.
The announcement was made at the Feb. 22 board of trustees meeting by general counsel Steve Bruckman.
“The child development center had serious construction defects,” he said at the meeting. “After four and a half years of challenging litigation, we were able to reach a settlement agreement of $4.8 million to be paid by the general contractor and a whole collection of subcontractors.”
The board unanimously approved the settlement. They had also previously agreed to the settlement in a closed session.
In 2005, Hunt Construction Group, along with subcontractors Project Frog and architecture firm MKThink, won a City College contract to construct three new buildings at the Ocean Campus: a new Wellness Center, a new Student Health building and the Child Development Center.
The Child Development Center quickly became the focus of a lengthy dispute as the normal aftermath of new construction—punch lists, revisions and finish work—grew into an ongoing battle over serious construction defects, including failing paint and creeping rust.
In October 2011, Vantage Point Consulting was hired to assess the physical state of the construction and determined the ongoing issue constituted negligence on the part of Hunt Construction and its subcontractors.
City College filed its lawsuit in September 2013 alleging breach of contract against all three contractors, with a special claim of negligence against MKThink in particular.