BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A problem with some foundation work at the Bengals' football stadium construction site has cost crews between two and three weeks in time, project supervisors said Wednesday.
But it won't cost Hamilton County taxpayers extra money or delay Paul Brown Stadium's August 2000 completion date, said Daniel Streyle, project manager, and Dale Middleton, the project superintendent. "You don't plan for anything to go wrong" in such an extensive project, Mr. Streyle said. "But you also plan that you're going to have some problems."
For just that reason, extra time is built into the construction schedule, Mr. Streyle said, although he added, "I don't want to imply we have gobs of extra time in the project."
Mr. Middleton stressed, "It's not going to affect the end date." The problem came with some of the angled concrete piles poured for the stadium's foundation.
In some of the piles, the steel rod that helps support the concrete was off center, which weakens the piles.
Construction crews caught the problem late last month, and have examined about 1,000 of the angled piles to check for problems, Mr. Streyle said. Of those, about 15 percent, or 150, have had to be fixed, he said.
Remedies for the problem varied. In the most extreme cases, crews had to add smaller piles to provide additional strength to those that had problems, he said.
Since the problem was detected July 21, crews have been using different methods to pour the piles and haven't had any problems, he said.
To make up for lost time, contractor Richard Goettle Inc. of Pleasant Run has brought in a fourth rig to pour the piles, Mr. Streyle said. Goettle must eat the additional costs associated with fixing the problem, he said.
The foundation contract Goettle won was worth nearly $8 million. The entire stadium complex, including the stadium itself, land, roadwork and three practice fields, is estimated to cost $404 million.
Mr. Streyle said the problem shouldn't reflect poorly on Goettle. "Goettle's a good contractor," he said. "They've put more piles in this region than any other company around."
