Second Anniversary Of Unfinished Construction At Borough Hall – Frank D’Amore

“Congratulations North Plainfield,” April 7, will mark 2 full years that the completion of construction at Borough Hall is overdue.
In the contract signed by The Borough of North Plainfield and the Dauti Construction Co.Inc. of West Orange, N.J. it was agreed that the construction/renovations, of the municipal complex, be completed 378 consecutive calendar days after the notice to proceed was signed. This notice to proceed was signed March 24, 2006. According to this contract the work should have been completed around April 7, 2007. On April 7, 2009 we will celebrate the second anniversary of a series of in my opinion, poor decisions made by North Plainfield that leaves us with the construction still not completed. One of these poor decisions has to do with not having a penalty clause in the contract. With a penalty clause the contractor would have to make some type of financial compensation for each day that exceeded the agreed on completion date,unless there were extenuating circumstances,ineptness is not considered and extenuating circumstance.
It is a common practice on multimillion dollar constructions jobs, such as this one, for a fiscally competent purchaser to include a penalty clause, that is probably why Norh Plainfield did not have one.
Another poor decision by the Borough was not to collect on the $3,999,500.00 performance bond that the Dauti Construction Company secured from the Great American Insurance Company of Cincinnati, Ohio (bond # 4583439). When posting a performance bond the contractor agrees to adhere to the provisions of the contract it has with the purchaser. It was pretty obvious after the first 6 months of attempted construction, by the contractor, that the 378 completion date would not be met. But the North Plainfield decision makers made no attempt to collect the performance bond so that someone more competent could complete the job before our second anniversary of non completion.
It is interesting to note that it took 420 days to complete construction of the Empire State Building. Construction started March 1930, and was completed May 1931. Apparently a choice of competent contractors, and a series of good decisions made by the property owners brought the successful completion of this magnificent edifice to such a rapid completion.