Farnsworth Group discusses errors made at new Lincoln Street Department Facility
Picks up the cost for correcting many of the problems

[May 15, 2017]  LINCOLN - After the Tuesday night meeting of the Lincoln City Council last week, Don Adams of Farnsworth Group summed up an earlier presentation he made saying, “It’s complicated, but the bottom line is we made a mistake.” He would go on to say that Farnworth was taking responsibility for their error, and would make it right financially.

The presentation began with John Bishop introducing Adams who then explained a request before the city council for change orders relating to the City Street Department’s new facility on Limit Street.

Adams said this was not the kind of presentation he enjoyed giving, but in the interest of being transparent and straight forward with the city, he was there to tell them that Farnsworth Group had made a costly error in laying out the storm water drainage plans for the new facility.

He said that when the site plans were being developed, there was a manhole on the property that should have been inspected and traced to see where it led. That work was not done. The result was that the Farnsworth engineers and designers had mapped out the storm water drainage that included underground storm sewer lines, unaware there was a sewer line in the pathway.

Adams said that was the first mistake. When construction began on the underground pipes, they ran right into the sewer line. Adams summed it up to the council saying, “It was our stupid mistake,” Therefore, he said, the construction was halted and an alternate plan was drawn up.

However, Adams said that though the manhole had been noted and the sewer line marked, what they didn’t find out was that a few feet from the manhole, the sewer line made an abrupt turn, resulting in, once again, the storm water drainage pipe intersecting with the sewerage lines.

In the end, Adams said that the storm drainage was redesigned again, and a new special structure called a “conflict structure” was added to the plan. Adams said the underground lines are going to be close together, and building this type of structure would provide easier access to all the pipes as opposed to manholes that are typically used.

Adams said that Farnsworth was taking full responsibility for the errors made, and would be paying the large portion of the additional costs involved. He said that looking at the situation now that they have all the information, Farnsworth engineers would have added a conflict structure to the plan early on had they realized they were dealing with the underground sewer.

Taking that into consideration, Farnsworth is going to pay all the additional costs except the cost of the conflict structure.

Adams said there were two additional oversights that are addressed in change order number five.

Farnsworth had not taken into consideration the land swap agreements with Illinois American Water. Therefore, the security fencing around the facility had been put in the wrong spot. Adams said the fencing had to be moved and Farnsworth had taken on the entire cost of that work.

Also, Ameren Illinois needed access on one side of the property, and the fencing interfered with that access. Therefore a gate had to be added specifically for Ameren. Farnsworth was also going to take care of the added cost for that adjustment.

After his presentation, Adams was asked by Steve Parrott if the Farnsworth Group had made these kinds of mistakes on other projects. Adams said absolutely not. He went on to say that the errors made with the street department design had been the topic of much discussion within the firm. He said that there had been adjustments made to design procedures that will help assure that errors such as this are less likely in the future.

Rick Hoefle commented that he appreciated the Farnsworth Group coming to the full council to explain the situation. He said it was the kind of open, transparent communication he expected from the group.

At the voting session of the Lincoln City Council tonight aldermen will be asked to vote on the following motion:

“Approval of change order with the Farnsworth Group for the new street garage in an amount not to exceed $65,349.50, with certain costs to be reimbursed by the Farnsworth Group in an amount of $26,151.”

The city will then be responsible for an amount not to exceed $28,198.50. However, this will be a pass-thru expense for the city because the cost of building the new facility falls on Common Wealth Edison and Nicor Gas as a part of the Environmental Protection Agency orders for remediation at the old facility on Third Street.

On a positive note, the construction of new Street Department is reported to be 98 percent complete. The main building will house the street department offices as well as staff areas and equipment storage, plus new offices for the Building and Safety Department.

[Nila Smith]