Fire station construction contract terminated

A $13.6 million fire station being built for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation along SR-155 has faced numerous delays, and a bigger delay now with the termination of the contract between the bureau and the construction company.

The contract for the project was awarded to Post Falls, Idaho-based Innovative Construction & Design Ltd. in 2016, with construction beginning in April of 2017. The building was originally scheduled to be complete in April 2018, according to a bureau press release issued in September of 2016.

Since then, numerous delays have pushed the completion date back, with little to no explanation from the bureau. By November 2016, the expected completion date was summer of 2018.

In an email from the bureau to The Star in June of 2018, the work was estimated to be complete in September of 2018.

The city council of Grand Coulee, which allowed for the closure of the east end of B Street during the construction of the fire station, said in an August 2018 meeting that the bureau expected construction to be finished in the spring of 2019.

The delays produced scorn and ridicule from locals who have asked The Star what was going on with the fire station since the delays became obvious in 2018. Then rumors began circulating last week about the contract being terminated, with the bureau eventually confirming this.

"I can confirm that the contract was terminated and that we are working with the surety to develop a plan to complete the project," said Lynne Brougher, the public affairs specialist for the bureau, in a March 15 email to The Star.

A surety is a third party, a person or organization, that agrees to assume responsibility in the case that a contract isn't fulfilled.

Reached by telephone, an employee from Innovative Construction & Design declined to comment on the situation.

The contract is the largest of several highlighted in a USBR website article about the agency awarding contracts to small businesses under a Dept. of Interior policy that requires the USBR "to allocate at least 53 percent of its budget to small business 'set asides.'"