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Firing of Design Team to Boost Costs of New Atlanta Airport Terminal

Posted on: Thursday, 1 December 2005, 12:00 CST

By Kirsten Tagami, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Dec. 1--The Atlanta airport's new international terminal will cost at least $150 million more than planned because the airport fired its design team, executives of the team told Atlanta City Council members Wednesday. The added cost may push the price tag well above $1 billion.

The design team -- led by the well-known architecture firm Leo A Daly -- was fired in August and is suing Atlanta, claiming the city owes $10 million for unpaid work and $50 million for damage to reputation.

Daly executives also have defended the team publicly, and on Wednesday the effort included an appearance before the council's Transportation Committee during the time set aside for "public comment." Later in the day Daly executives held a news conference.

City attorney Linda DiSantis declined to respond to the team's claims.

"The Leo Daly people and the design team certainly have the right to public comment," DeSantis said. "However, we believe these issues should be decided in court."

Council member Felicia Moore, who is on the Transportation Committee, said it was interesting to hear Daly's side but that it was difficult for council members to sort through the competing claims.

As well as legal costs, city-owned Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport will have to spend $150 million more for the terminal because a new design team must redesign the building -- at a price tag of $19 million to $25 million, according to Daly's estimates.

Costs for steel and other materials are rising and the city will have to pay more for debt service on bonds issued to finance the project, said Jerry Voith, head of the design team. Also, the city continues to pay consultants and staff who are assigned to the project, he said. The city has already spent $34 million on the design team's finished plans.

The current estimate to design and build the international terminal is $983 million, according to the airport.

Airport general manager Ben DeCosta fired the team because, he said, it was behind schedule and at least 20 percent over budget.

DeCosta said he wasn't told of the cost overruns until late in the process, a claim the design team disputes.

DeCosta and other airport managers were told as early as September 2003 that $35 million in costs had been added to the project at the request of airport management -- and that the increase needed to be put into the budget, the Daly team said.

DeCosta was out of the country and unavailable to comment Wednesday. An airport spokeswoman referred questions to DiSantis.

Daly's chief operating officer, John Whisler, said airport officials demanded many additions and changes that drove up costs -- including such things as a new maintenance terminal for the underground trains -- but didn't want to pay for them.

DeCosta, meanwhile, has called the terminal "overdesigned,""luxurious" and "far more muscular than it needed to be."

It is rare for designers of a major project to be fired, and the team says the stigma has already cost it other jobs. The team wants to clear its name, and most of all, "would love to complete this world-class facility. Whether that's possible at this point, we don't know," said one of the team's lawyers, Chip Ingraham.

Leo A. Daly III, the company's chairman and CEO, recently made a personal appeal to Mayor Shirley Franklin, who encouraged the two sides to try mediation, Whisler said. But Whisler said talks about entering mediation were "a disaster."

While the legal dispute over the Daly team's firing continues, site preparation work is under way for the terminal, and the airport plans to rebid the design work.

But the opening date has been pushed back to 2010 at the earliest.

The terminal is intended to provide an alternative entry and exit point, and especially to improve access to the international Concourse E. It is part of a massive airport expansion program that also includes the fifth runway, set to open next year.

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Source: The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

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