Milwaukee County may sue zoo exhibit contractors

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Milwaukee County may be preparing to sue VJS Construction and HGA Architects over change orders that cost the county about $250,000 during construction of an elephant exhibit at the Milwaukee County Zoo.

Milwaukee County Deputy Corporation Counsel Paul Kuglitsch filed a document dated Feb. 8 with the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors indicating that the county could sue the contractors over four errors officials discovered during the project’s construction. Kuglitsch sent a memo detailing the errors to the county’s Committee on Judiciary, Safety and General Service, which meets March 7. An agenda for that meeting has not been finalized. That committee and the County Board of Supervisors must approve the action before a lawsuit is filed, according to a spokesman for the board.

The dispute stems from work VJS and HGA performed on the Milwaukee County Zoo’s Adventure Africa exhibit, which was the most expensive contract the county awarded in 2017. The elephant exhibit makes up about a quarter of the zoo and the project represented the first phase of an expansion that is expected to be complete early this year.

The $14.1 million project rebuilt the zoo’s elephant exhibit to comply with updated standards for elephant care set by the non-profit Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Milwaukee County officials put the project up for bid twice — in June and July of 2017 — in an attempt to hold down costs. Even after accepting VJS’s low bid in the project’s second letting, zoo officials still had to raise money to finance the project because the $16.6 million that the county had set aside couldn’t cover construction, design and engineering costs among others.

Milwaukee County hired HGA to perform architectural and engineering design services for the elephant exhibit in December 2015 and hired VJS as the prime contractor on the project in August 2017. Neither firm returned messages seeking comment by press time Wednesday.

In his memo, Kuglitsch argues that county officials identified four errors from the elephant project:

• Officials discovered visible bowing and cracking on a “two-and-a-half month old,” 100-foot retaining wall that was built as part of the project. Mead & Hunt, a company Milwaukee County hired to review the project, attributed the problems to “deficient design,” while an expert HGA hired, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, agreed. Corrections to the wall cost about $90,000.
• As part of a barrier for the elephant exhibit, about 130 reinforcing bar cages and anchor bolts were built. But the county discovered that the bar cages and anchor bolts didn’t fit as they were supposed to in designs. Mead & Hunt found the designs for the component were vague. In addition, a note on the design plans indicates that if the design isn’t clear, the construction contractor should seek clarification. The contractor never sought clarification, however, and built the project based on “their assumption.” Fixing that problem cost about $135,000.
• County officials found two other problems with the project. Designs for a retaining wall omitted proper drainage components, “despite clear recommendations,” costing about $7,000 to fix. A structural engineer had to add reinforcing steel to the elephant pool, costing about $4,000.

According to Kuglitsch’s memo, the county’s risk management department demanded damages from VJS and HGA for these errors. But negotiations with the contractors were “unsuccessful.” Based on the break-down in talks with the companies, the county may sue, according to the memo.

“The Zoo has had to expend substantial resources correcting these issues, because HGA and VJS refused to do so,” according to county documents. Follow @“natebeck9”