Construction consequences

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Missing the target date to reopen West Johnson Street by more than one month, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation is currently investigating if Parisi Construction should be forced to pay a $1,200 fine for every day it failed to meet the deadline for completion.

The DOT sponsored the West Johnson construction, meaning it was responsible for administering the contract with Parisi Construction and overseeing the construction staffing and engineering, according to DOT Project Development supervisor Bill Oliva.

Oliva said the DOT is in the process of “sifting through what happened” after Parisi missed several interim completion dates, including the deadline to re-convert Dayton Street to two-way traffic. The department will decide the number of days Parisi will be fined at $1,200 per day.

Issues the DOT will be assessing are the unexpected delays caused by utilities, especially at the intersection of State Street and West Johnson. The department will also consider the additional work added to the contract, such as additional sidewalks the city requested and how much time that additional work should have taken.

Oliva said the DOT is still receiving bills for the additional contracted work, so it is not sure yet how many extra days should be allotted. Once the department decides the number of days Parisi should be fined, Oliva said it is likely it will have a rebuttal and the number of days of fines will be the result of negotiations between the two parties.

While Oliva said construction companies missing deadlines is “fairly common,” target completion dates are only put in place when the construction would interfere heavily with traffic and if the dates are used as additional liability for the construction company.

In late November, Madison mayor Dave Cieslewicz wrote a letter to the DOT expressing the city’s dissatisfaction with Parisi Construction’s work on Johnson Street, which Cieslewicz said is used by more than 36,500 vehicles per day. He said the fines of their contract should be enforced.

“We’ve listened very closely to the city’s opinion on the matter,” Oliva said.

In his letter, Cieslewicz said if Parisi had managed the project effectively, it should not have missed any deadlines.

“The scale and magnitude of this project allowed for the utilization of multiple crews in various locations. However, Parisi chose to focus their construction efforts in only one area at a time, while other areas of the project remained vacant and virtually ignored. This was particularly galling to the residents and business owners,” Cieslewicz’s letter read.

Cieslewicz will meet today with the heads of various city departments to discuss upcoming construction projects and how to avoid the problems faced during the Johnson Street construction, according to Melanie Conklin, spokesperson for Cieslewicz.

A major goal of the meetings is to figure out how to make traffic construction as citizen-friendly as possible.