A Mandeville construction company will be banned from New Orleans projects after it abandoned its work to repair a street in Treme, leaving the road impassable for over eight months and frustrating residents, New Orleans officials said.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration agreed to pay Command Construction Industries $8 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to repair roads and infrastructure in Treme-Lafitte beginning in late 2020. The firm was to focus on about 40 blocks of needed sewage, water and drainage line repairs underground, and perform minor and extensive repairs of roads, curbs, and sidewalks in some areas.
But when Command workers got to a final stretch of the project last year on St. Peter and North Villere streets, the city realized the company needed to connect to a water line on Claiborne Avenue in order to complete its work. That meant changing the project’s scope, a plan the contractor refused to sign off on.
After repeated calls and meetings, the city terminated the contract in May, city Department of Public Works Director Rick Hathaway told the City Council at a meeting earlier this month.
“We had several meetings with them before it got to this point,” Hathaway said. “We’ve asked for them to sign the plan change in order to keep the work going. It got to a point where they were not cooperating and we had no other venue to use.”
Representatives for Command Construction did not respond to multiple requests for comment. It’s not clear why the company refused to agree to the change of plans, or if costs were a concern.
The stalled work is only the latest example of delays in the provision of basic services in New Orleans, a city where pothole repairs or cleared storm drains take months or even a year to complete. Though the city has a multi-billion dollar plan to replace damaged infrastructure, officials had as of June spent just 40% of about $1.4 billion in federal aid the city received eight years ago.
Officials say a big problem is that the city outsources much of that work to contractors.
To speed things along in Treme, council members voted unanimously on Sept. 5 to let Cantrell’s office put the rest of the work, which will cost the city about $1.5 million, out to an emergency bid, declaring it an “imminent threat to safety, life and property of the Treme neighborhood and a public emergency.”
That means the public works department will be allowed to invite specific contractors to bid on the work, a quicker process than normal. The department has 21 days to report its progress in finding a new contractor to the council. A city spokesperson did not say Tuesday how long it would take for work to be completed.
Hathaway said his department is working to document the incident that led to the contract termination and the project delays, so that Command can be disqualified if they bid on future projects.
Council member Lesli Harris said at the meeting that St. Peter Street is not the only one that is in disrepair and Command isn’t the only problem company. In some cases, crews have had to rip roads apart again after other contractors had completed repairs in order to fix work done incorrectly.
Joe Threat, deputy CEO of infrastructure for the city, said officials have already started to crack down on problem contractors who do shoddy work but still get approved for contracts. Others have been fired or sanctioned, he said.
“We’re working right now to finish all that work, and kind of clean up the house as far as the contractors that are out there that are not doing a good product for the city,” Threat said.
Meanwhile, Treme residents have been forced to live in a construction zone since demolition on St. Peters and North Villere streets started in early 2023. And since January, St. Peter has been totally impassable.
Council member Freddie King showed his colleagues photos of the street at the meeting. The street is blocked by cracked concrete and massive pieces of abandoned construction materials, and has been covered in a blanket of weeds after being neglected for nearly a year.
Cheryl Austin, director of Greater Treme Consortium, said the delays in this project are yet another sign of how residents are forced to live with a road repair schedule that is “in disarray.”
“Everywhere you go, it’s like driving on a rollercoaster, and when it rains, you don’t know if you’re going to hit a hole or a sidewalk or something,” Austin said. “There is no safe street in the city.”