When your Fire Marshall requested that a fire rated engineer sign and seal the drawings, HSA
Golden insisted that this was an unnecessary delay in getting the permits to begin construction.
They pointed to the DRC meetings and continued to blame the City for the delays and increases
in the costs for engineering. Our original estimate for the drawings was $53,000 and in fact they
billed us closer to $160,000. HSA informed us they could hire an outside fire rated engineering
firm to sign and seal the drawings at an additional cost of $15,000. HSA were well aware of the
August 31st deadline and continued to threaten a lien against our bond with the City if we didn’t
continue to pay their inflated invoices. If we refused to pay they would contact the City and
inform them they hadn’t been paid. We are trying to keep your confidence in us and our ability
to move the project forward and we were concerned this would create a further strain on our
credibility. If we attempted to change engineering firms at this point we would not be able to
make the deadline of August 31st. This was a serious dilemma. We decided to hire our own fire
rated engineering firm to sign and seal the documents. During this same time we acquired a
general contractor/engineer, Walt Kritsky, for our Florida expansion. He contacted the Fire
Marshall to inquire if his credentials would suffice for signing and sealing the drawings. He soon
discovered after reviewing the drawings that they had some serious flaws regarding fire and life
safety and even if he could he would need to rework the drawings to meet the fire code
regulations. He recommended we hire Hughes, an experienced firm with fire safety experience
and credentials. Hughes provided a comprehensive list of what would be required before they
would be able to sign and seal the drawings. We took this report back to HSA and they refused to
rework the drawings unless we paid them $48,000. At this point we had no confidence if we paid
the $48,000 we would have received the work product we were paying for and may not be able
to have Hughes sign off on the drawings. It was time to make a switch and let HSA move
forward with their threats. We are now working on a claim against their E&O insurance and
pursuing legal action to recover damages for the delays they caused.
Says a lot.
AI
