D.C. construction chief fires contractors on renovation job

On his first official day on the job, Washington, D.C., school construction czar Allen Y. Lew fired the contractors on a $33 million school renovation and pledged that other underperforming companies could face a similar fate. Students at Hardy Middle School in the Georgetown neighborhood have been ferried by bus to the old Hamilton Junior High School while contractors have worked on a renovation started in 2005. Lew says "poor coordination" between the school system, the architect and the contractors has put the project up to a year behind schedule and $12 million over budget. The project was a joint venture of Arrow Construction Co. and W.M. Schlosser Co. The Temple Group was the project manager.
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EARLIER: Allen Y. Lew, the Washington, D.C., schools construction czar, has asked the City Council to let him take over the routine maintenance of school buildings. He says that to fully transform crumbling schoolhouses, he needs funding and staff members now assigned to the school system. Lew says his Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization should acquire the school system's Office of Facilities Management, a department that responds to routine maintenance requests such as repairing roofs and does long-term planning for multimillion-dollar construction projects recommended in the Master Facilities Plan.
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