March 12--A fire station on Pompano Beach's shoreline that was supposed to be built by October 2012 but still isn't done thanks to problems with a contractor should be finished this year.
"It's good because, you know, we've been longer on this project than it took to build the Empire State Building," said Commissioner Barry Dockswell, who represents the beach.
The city and a bonding company this week reached an agreement for finishing construction on the $3.1 million structure at Northeast Second Street and A1A. There's about four months of work left to do, said Robert McCaughan, public works director.
The city had to get the bonding company to finish the project because it fired its contractor, the Miami-based JCON Group, last year for delaying the project and not fixing problems including a leaking roof and a broken security fence around the construction site, said Robert McCaughan, public works director.
"They were taking too long, they weren't being responsive, they were making a mess in the neighborhood," Dockswell said of the contractor.
The situation has left those who live on the beach enduring "years of construction in progress," Dockswell said.
In addition, the fire department needs the new station, said Fire Chief John Jurgle in August at the time of JCON's firing.
The latest trucks and other equipment the department uses are a "tight fit" in the current station, which was built in the 1950s, he said. That station was originally designed for fewer firefighters than currently work there.
Construction should start soon after the agreement is approved by the commission, likely on March 25, McCaughan said.
The project has been stalled since August, when the JCON Group was fired, because JCON objected to their being ousted, Dockswell said. But the bonding company has decided the firing was OK and agreed to go ahead with the project, Dockswell said.
That means the bonding company will pay the city back any amount of money above what they were supposed to pay on the project when Pompano hired the JCON Group, McCaughan said. That looks like it will be about $628,000, but that could be more, he said. The city itself will spend another $1.2 million on the project.
The new contractor, Tallahassee-based Pinnacle Construction Support Group, is already building another fire station in central Pompano and things are going smoothly there, McCaughan said.
"The bottom line," McCaughan said, "is that we have a good agreement now, we're not at a stalemate, and we've got a $1.2 million job we're trying to get right this time."
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