Airport contractor sues city

The contractor for a $4.8 million project to rework parking lots at the Colorado Springs Airport is suing the city to be reimbursed for $290,000 in cost overruns it alleges airport officials caused.

Torix General Contractors LLC filed the suit in January, saying airport officials “hindered and disrupted” the 2005 project by, among other reasons, changing the project schedule to reduce the airport’s “lost parking revenue” during the project, the suit said.

The schedule change, along with a later request to speed up construction so the project would be completed before the Christmas holiday season, delayed work into the winter months, requiring Torix to spend money protecting concrete from cold weather, the suit said.

Torix also says in the suit that design problems inflated costs for the project by delaying completion, forcing both the company and its subcontractor, Sun Construction Inc., to pay additional costs for which they have not been reimbursed.

The city denied all allegations in the suit in its answer and said Torix caused the delays and additional costs by “its inability to comply with the contract specifications.”

The city also said in its answer that Torix had waived any right to sue.

Mark Earle, the city’s aviation director, declined to comment on the allegations in the suit but called it a “dispute over what (Torix) should be paid. We have looked at all of the issues they have raised and have tried to resolve them.”

Wendel Torres, chief executive of Torix, and Karl Berg Jr., the company’s attorney, did not return calls Friday seeking comment on the suit, which is scheduled for a two-week trial Jan. 28 before 4th Judicial District Judge Steven Pelican.

The parking project was designed to reduce traffic in front of the terminal by switching the airport’s shortterm and rental-car parking lots so that drivers no longer had to drive through the airport’s passenger pickup area to get to the rental-car lot.

The parking lot project was plagued by delays as the city had to bid out the project three times because bids came in “significantly higher” than airport officials had budgeted for, and a statewide cement shortage limited cement deliveries and put construction behind schedule.

The project, which included building canopies along the front of both lots and connecting with the terminal, was eventually split into two parts. Construction on the canopies is under way and scheduled for completion in about a month or so, Earle said.

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