Webcor/Obayashi Sues San Francisco Transit Terminal Owner

On Oct. 16, the Webcor/Obayashi Joint Venture, general contractor for the Salesforce Transit Center in San Francisco, filed a complaint San Francisco Superior Court against the hub's owner, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, seeking $150 million in extra payments on its $994,517,600 contract.

The lawsuit, which requests a jury trial, alleges TJPA caused significant delays and additional costs related to the late delivery of the design and that TJPA provided the contractor with defective design documents. Substantial completion, set for last Oct. 23, was instead achieved on July 12, according to the complaint.

The 4.5-block-long hub, which opened in August, was designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. Thornton Tomasetti is the structural engineer of record.

In response, TJPA said, in a statement released Oct. 17, "The Transbay Joint Powers Authority will hold Webcor/Obayashi Joint Venture responsible for their contractual commitment to deliver this project to the people of the Bay Area and the state of California."

The hub is temporarily closed since the discovery of cracks in bottom flanges of parallel built-up plate girders in the third floor that span 80 ft over Fremont Street and help support a 5.4-acre rooftop park above and a bus level, via hangers, below. To date, shoring has been installed to relieve the loads on the damaged girders.

Nadine M. Post, ENR's editor-at-large for buildings, is an award-winning journalist with 45 years of experience covering trends, issues, innovations, controversies and challenging projects. Post has written about many industry giants, including 10 ENR Award of Excellence winners. And she has covered disasters, failures and attacks, including the 1993 bombing and the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center. Project stories include the redevelopment of the World Trade Center; the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa; Los Angeles’ Disney Concert Hall; and Seattle's Bullitt Center and Rainier Square Tower. In 1985, Post wrote McGraw-Hill's book Restoring the Statue of Liberty (1986) for the restoration’s architects—Richard S. Hayden and Thierry W. Despont.

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