Board members of Portland Public Schools weigh a recommendation of employees to reduce relationships with the prominent construction company, which contractually concluded with the modernization of the Jefferson High School, a historical anchor of the now co -founded quarter, which was once the heart of the black community in the city became.
In a five -sided memo of the Oregonian/Oregonlive, which was presented to the members of the school board in an executive meeting at the beginning of this week to regain the project.
District officers admitted that this would almost certainly delay the start date of the Jefferson project again, probably in the summer of 2026, and that the beginning with a new contractor may not save any money in the long run. Nevertheless, officials said they believe that cancellation would be the right step.
In view of the planning of scheduling delays, cost crossing and other breakdowns at Benson High, while Andersen supervised the extensive renovation of the school, “PPS has considerable concerns about the performance of Andersen … including schedule management/timely completion, cost management, quality and security,” wrote this District staff in the district employee to the memo, added: “If the Jefferson project is rebuilt, PPS is reasonably expecting a higher quality of project management and execution of the contract in a new tree manager/general contractor.”
In a telephone interview on Thursday, Brian Knudsen, a regional Vice President of Andersen, refused to react to these claims.
A spokesman for the Portland public schools confirmed the recommendation of employees in the memo, but emphasized that no decisions had been made.
Three out of seven members of the school board stated on Thursday that they tend to support the recommendation, which means that only further coordination would be necessary if the decision was made to public vote. State law prohibits the board members of making decisions in executive meetings.
“I tend to change contractors,” said board member Patte Sullivan on Thursday. “I was convinced of the personnel report and have heard about problems in Benson for a while. It seemed to be time to change. She [Andersen] have given many opportunities. “
Her colleagues, board members Julia Brim-Edwards and Herman Greene, said that they too had planned to support the recommendation.
“If the rifle scope changes so much, it will send us to see if someone else can do it for cheaper,” said Greene. “It has nothing to do with Andersen Construction Company. I don't care if you get it again. But so that we really say that we are fair and have really carried out a competition process, we have to change it so much that we have to send it back. “
The other four board members rejected a comment.
Knudsen was informed about the memo and board members of the Oregonian/Oregonlive on Thursday and said the company could not comment on the document because it has no copy.
In an e -mail declaration, Knudsen said: “We can say that we are so proud of the work that PPS, the design professionals, Andersen Construction, our trading partners and the hundreds of specialist retailers made people to build the new newly designed benson Have polytechnic high school, which offered the students a nice new place of learning and opened on schedule last autumn. “
According to the contractual terms, the school district of Andersen can terminate at any time for no reason as long as it has paid for preliminary construction services. The district has so far paid Andersen 1.8 million US dollars.
The district recorded Andersen in January 2023 to act as a tree manager/general contractor at Jefferson. This model, on which the district has rely on the district of its high school moderization projects.
According to the demo of the district, the project was complex from the start. Andersen informed the school district in July 2023 that it could cost more than 500 million US dollars for the construction of the Jefferson, employees, employees and parishioners, including the preservation of the historical facade of the school.
Due to the “multi-gable”, the district stuck around $ 136 million at this price. The designers sent a joint excistite on plans to move the students to the Faraway Marshall High School during the construction.
They developed a plan to build a brand new building next to the old so that the students continue to attend the existing school during the construction, then knock down the old building and place playing fields in their place. With this change, Andersen informed the school district that the price had once again shot to 490 million US dollars.
A look at the construction project at the Benson High School. The tree manager/general contractor for this project was also Andersen Construction.With the kind permission of public schools in Portland
In the meantime, the problems in Benson, which was reopened in August 2024, brewed. Under other watches, the costs up to the estimates that the district was forced to use the financing of $ 165 million from the 2020 bond to end the work.
A highlight of factors from Andersen's work in Benson and the nearby multiple ways to the campus of the degree pushed the district employee to ultimately shorten the lottery of the construction companies, according to the memo, which was shared with members of the school board.
In the memo, the employees claimed that Andersen “had proven a pattern of the non -communicating costs about cost overalls and that the district was unable to make” sound decisions “in the course of the building. In an example from the last month, Andersen, which is still on site, surprised PPS with further construction fees of around $ 49 million, according to the memo.
“Although some of these costs are probably legitimate increases in construction costs, it is reasonable to conclude that Andersen insufficiently guided construction costs with their subcontractors for such a large number of claims that have been accumulated with their subcontractors,” says the memo . Andersen checks which of these invoices should present PPS for reimbursement.
“We work with PPS to achieve a fair solution for all outstanding questions,” Knudsen told the Oregonian/Oregonlive.
The Memo continued to describe Andersen's ability to keep the blueprint as “poor”.
“The monthly updates of the construction plan often often reflect the actual progress on the website,” says the memo. “They reflected work that should have been done instead of working that were actually completed.”
Knudsen refused to comment on this claim, but said: “The school was opened on time.”
The PPS memo also recalled the board members of the death of an iron worker in June 2024, which was crushed when a forklift rolled the 33-year-old at the Benson Construction Site, which asked her estate to submit an illegal death penalty against Andersen.
The subcontractor Samantha “Sam” Deschenes initially searched 25 million US dollars, but has increased this to $ 31 million since then. The case is pending before the Multnomah County Circuit Court. When the Oregonian/Oregonlive reported on the first action last year, a representative of Andersen declined the peculiarities of the lawsuit, but said: “Our focus is on and with security and health officers as part of the accident examination. “
In the memo, death was a tragedy and found that PPS is not a party for the ongoing legal dispute, while she listed it as an example of “job security” under a broader heading by “Andersen performance concerns”.
The recommendation to terminate the Andersen contract is a further fork in the street for the two decades long struts of the district to rebuild all nine of its comprehensive high schools.
Six of these projects have been completed. Three remain: Jefferson, Cleveland and Wells High Schools, although the work on the latter two is dependent on the voters who in May to say goodbye to a general bond of 1.8 billion US dollars, of which up to 1, 15 billion US dollars for the three schools could be spent.
Alarmed by this price, the school authorities reported the brakes in autumn all three of their high school projects and requested that the construction costs be examined. The goal: the costs for the back saving more borrowing funds for the urgently needed maintenance of middle and primary schools.
The exam showed that the total cost of project management from Andersen was 89 million US dollars and is well above the 65 million US dollar for Wells and Cleveland.
Exactly specify what is being cut out to save money – project management costs? Mass wood building material? Teen education centers? Quadrat meter number, including a reduction in the number of classrooms that could mean that teachers have to share space? -Is still work in the works. In the meantime, the work on the high school has stopped, which led to uncertainties to the associated contractors, architects and engineers.
Portland's relationship could collect the termination of the Andersen contract within the construction industry, recognized the district employee in her memo. Lower a contract with Andersen, which the Portland Business Journal most recently classified as the fourth largest civil or trading company in the Portland subway region, will undoubtedly send waves through a community of architects, engineers and construction workers who are also as talkative as they to compete for the work.
While public projects are more lucrative contracts that can win local construction companies, the memo notes that customers who cancel contracts, as PPS suggests, can gain a call for unpredictability that deviate future potential bidders.
“PPS has revised many decisions in the past and restarted the design of the Jefferson project,” wrote the district employee in the memo. On the whole, contractors are risky. “
Another unknown: Like many other construction companies in the region, the bandwidth have to take over the Portland Public Schools project. Two of the other large construction companies in the region, Hoffman Construction and Skanska, are already contractual with working on wells or clenveland. (Skanska was also the contractor for the Franklin High Rebuild and Hoffman Bau Lincoln High. Lease Crutcher Lewis rebuilt Roosevelt High, while Fortis Construction McDaniel High.)
However, the district employee also suggested that the Jefferson project, as a complete teardown and reconstruction, requires less finesse and complexity than the original concept -to renovate the interior and at the same time restore the historical exterior -which means that a wider pool of contractors is one Wider pool of contractors is able to emit a bid.
-Julia Silverman covers the K-12 training for the Oregonian/Oregonlive. Use e -mail to reach jsilverman@oregonian.com
– Jonathan Bach includes apartments and real estate. Achieve it by email at jbach@oregonian.com or by phone at 503-221-4303.