Residents in Minneapolis' Kenwood neighborhood unsuccessfully sued the Met Council in 2014 to stop the project. In the documents, LMJV also details the challenges of construction in an active freight railroad corridor, which is adjacent to the popular bike and pedestrian Kenilworth trail.Īnd there were issues involving "wealthy communities not supportive of the project with little tolerance for the impacts arising from construction," LMJV says. AECOM did not respond to a request for comment on this story. In October 2021, the Office of the Legislative Auditor released a memo detailing a fraught relationship between AECOM and the Met Council. A group of consultants led by AECOM, a publicly traded Texas-based infrastructure consulting firm, is responsible for the Southwest's overall design and engineering work. LMJV says the legislative auditor gave Southwest's engineer of record "a pass despite all the problems with its design," without naming the firm. ![]() The company said it had "no fault or liability related to these issues," and declined further comment. Some 2,544 construction changes deemed "continuous and extensive" affected the project's schedule, resulting in "increased costs due the contractor being on site longer and escalating labor and material costs," LMJV said in a statement to the Star Tribune. As a result, according to LMJV, the parties "have been struggling with the consequences of that problem ever since." In documents supplied to the legislative auditor, LMJV said that it was unaware that Southwest's design was "incomplete, erroneous and inadequate" when it bid on the work in 2018. And then there were the difficulties cited by the Met Council in building a tunnel for light-rail trains in the Kenilworth Corridor, which required a different construction method to protect the nearby Cedar Isles condo complex. The council has said the wall wasn't in the overall bid package because its design was not complete.Īdding the Eden Prairie Town Center Station back into the project, after it had been nixed to save money, also boosted costs. The Met Council has blamed the project's increasing costs on a $93 million crash wall separating light-rail and freight trains west of Target Field, a late addition required by BNSF Railway as a safeguard for "a 200-mph high-speed train," according to LMJV. of Maple Grove had extensive experience building large infrastructure projects, many of them in Minnesota, when they formed a joint venture to bid on Southwest. Southwest's original $1.25 billion budget has more than doubled, and its opening date has been pushed back nearly a decade.īoth Lunda Construction and C.S. The project's expanding budget has made it the most expensive public works project in Minnesota history, as well as the focus of growing public disdain. ![]() Southwest is an enormously complicated infrastructure project, one the Met Council calls a "generational investment." It includes 16 new stations, 29 bridges and two light-rail tunnels, including one in Minneapolis' narrow and densely populated Kenilworth Corridor between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles. The extension of the current Green Line is more than 70% complete. Louis Park, Hopkins and Minnetonka once it begins service in 2027. The Met Council is overseeing construction of the 14.5-mile line, which will connect downtown Minneapolis and Eden Prairie through St. Two additional reports on the project from her office are expected by the end of the year. Legislative Auditor Judy Randall declined to comment on the LMJV documents. LMJV largely has refrained from commenting publicly on Southwest's issues since it was awarded the $800 million civil construction bid in 2018. ![]() The legislative auditor has "either misrepresented the facts or twisted them to serve an objective," wrote Dennis Behnke, CEO of Wisconsin-based Lunda Construction Co., in a March 29 letter to Metropolitan Council Chair Charlie Zelle. In documents obtained by the Star Tribune through the state's Data Practices Act, officials with Lunda McCrossan Joint Venture (LMJV) also take aim at the state's Office of the Legislative Auditor, calling its critical reports on the project "inaccurately reported or incorrectly interpreted" and "lacking any apparent experience or expertise." ![]() The contractor building the $2.7 billion Southwest light-rail line attributes many of its cost overruns and delays to a "deficient design" crafted long before ground was broken on the project nearly five years ago.
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