A subcontractor established in Chicago sues one of the companies involved in the management of the construction of the Obama Presidential Center For $ 40 million, claiming racial discriminatory practices forced the company to do extra work so that the risk of bankruptcy runs into the risk, according to a lawsuit.
Robert McGee, the owner of II in One, who offered concrete and negligent services for the center since 2021, brought the court case in the federal court last month against The New York -based Thornton Tomasetti, who supervises structural engineering and design services for the $ 830 million project.
McGee claims that Thornton Tomasetti has changed the standards and imposed new rules on the requirements for Rebar -distance and tolerance that differed from the American Concrete Institute standards, resulting in “excessive rigorous and unnecessary inspection” and mass overruns.
Former President Obama and his presidential center (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg, Left, and Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images, right.)
Obama breaks ground in Chicago for a massive presidential center project
This, McGee, claims, has made extensive paperwork that influenced productivity and resulted in millions of losses, according to the lawsuit.
Thornton Tomasetti, however, defended his actions almost a year ago and wrote in a memo to the court case that the subcontractors were “doubtfully qualified”, and the delays were due to their own shortcomings.
The Obama Presidential Center is being built near Jackson Park in ChicagoAnd will consist of a planned museum, library, community and conference facilities. The center will house the non -profit Obama Foundation, which supervises the development of the center and manages a stock market program through the Harris School of Public Policy of the University of Chicago.
McGee claims that Thornton Tomasetti II wrongly accused in one of the lack of sufficient qualifications and experience to perform his work, while stated that non-less contractors were sufficiently qualified.
He tries to be repaid back for around $ 40 million in construction costs that the company has covered, together with his joint venture partner, concrete collective.
“In a shocking and discouraging turn of events, the Afro -American owner of a local construction company is and his company on the edge of forced closure due to racial discrimination by the structural engineer,” is the court case.
In a memo, Thornton Tomasetti shared statues of cracked plate and exposed reinforcement steel. (Lasuit)
“II in one and his joint venture partners … was subject to unfounded criticism and defamatory and discriminatory accusations of the structural engineer of the Obama Foundation, Thornton Tomasetti.
Thornton Tomasetti, however, claimed in an attached memo of February 2024 that the construction costs and delays “all were unambiguously driven by the underperformance and inexperienced” of that subcontractor, II in one.
In a memo“ Thornton Tomasetti shared images of cracked plate and exposed reinforcement steel.
In the memo, Thornton Tomasetti tells the leadership of Obama Foundation that spent hundreds of hours assessing, analyzing, re -designing and responding to corrective work and that contractors “caused a multiple of problems in the field.”
Thornton Tomasetti said that the challenges with the concrete were only due to the performance of the contractors.
“We cannot be over, while contractors try to blame their own shortcomings of the design team,” said the memo.
The memo also explains that Thornton Tomasetti and an architectural firm “Bent forwards to help what everyone knows a doubtful qualified subcontractor team was in areas where more qualified subcontractor would not have required it.”
The Obama Presidential Center under construction in the 6000 block of South Stony Island Avenue on August 10, 2023. (Chicago Tribune / Employee)
The project has had to deal with problems in the past. The construction was initially expected to start in 2018, but it was kicked back to 2021. It is planned to open somewhere in 2026.
Some community activists claim that the new center will cause prices for houses and rent to rise and many of those who live in the area can praise. Environmental activists have also been critical of the project, with the argument that it would remove too many trees and destroy some bird habitats.
Activists threatened to sue the developments, but the plan to build the center was approved shortly after a lawsuit was brought, according to Newsweek. The Supreme Court refused to hear the request to hear the case in 2021.
Governor of Illinois JB Pritzker, left, joins former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama in a ceremonial groundbreaking in the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park on 28 September 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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Obama said that he hopes that the center would help promote the south side of the city and bring chicagoans together.
The Democrat tried those controversies during His groundbreaking speech from 2021 on the site Say that the center “will plant new trees” and “new habitats will offer for birds and wildlife.”
Fox News Digital contacted the Obama Foundation, Thornton Tomasetti and II in one for comment, but received no answers before publication.
Michael Lew contributed to this report.
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