The progress – or lack or progress – at the automatic parking garage at 916 Garden St. has been heavy ammunition for election debate, fodder for intense community dispute, and the center of more than one lawsuit.
Estimates from sources inside the Hoboken Parking Authority have said recently that the problematic 324-car automated parking garage will run the HPA more than $12 million after all expenses are counted up.
The garage was supposed to be a one-of-a kind innovative parking structure when it was proposed in the late 1990s. Touted as a way to automatically move cars around in a small space, the innovative facility is now more than two years behind schedule.
On Oct. 9, 1998 the HPA entered into a construction contract with the contractor, the Belcor/Megan Group of Hackensack, to build the garage in 365 days from the start of the contract.
Today, a structure stands on the spot but awaits completion.
On Aug. 30 of this year, the HPA entered into a takeover agreement with Lumbermen’s Mutual Casualty Company of Lyndhurst, the insurance (surety) company that holds the $6.1 million performance bond on the garage.
The takeover agreement states that the HPA has declared Belcor/Megan in default of the contract and has terminated Belcor’s right to proceed in finishing the project. The takeover agreement states that the insurance company will oversee the completion of the project.
The surety has hired Retrotech Inc. of Fishers, N.Y. to act as the general contractor to oversee whatever work needs to be finished. One subcontractor under Retrotech will be Robotic Parking Inc., the engineering firm that Belcor had fired in October of 2000. According to the takeover agreement, the insurance company has 181 days from Sept.10 to have the garage operational. The contract can be extended with the consent of the HPA an additional 90 days, but no longer than 90 days. If the contract takes all 181 days, the garage can open in March of 2002. In the case of another extension, it must open by June of 2002.
"It’s in the hands of surety now," said HPA commissioner Donald Pellicano, who has been at the HPA for more than 20 years, recently. "The insurance company has a contract with the [HPA] to finish the project within 181 days from the start of work on Sept. 10. They control who is hired and who does the work and are contractually compelled to finish the garage."
A critic of the project said that while he was against it in the past, he’s just hoping it soon will be finished and functional.
"My feeling is that in a perfect world, we should just cut our losses and turn the building into a community center," said City Council President Tony Soares. "And while I believe that the idea for that type of garage in a residential neighborhood was poorly conceived, we now have a commitment to make sure it is finished properly."
There are those that are optimistic about the completion of the project. "Even with the problems, in the end this is going to be a home run," said 5th Ward Councilman Michael Cricco Tuesday. "This garage is going to take nine blocks of cars off the street."
The mayor’s office is eyeing the project closely and is waiting to see if the project gets completed on time before commenting further.
"The mayor is in close communication with the Parking Authority, and we are staying informed on every aspect of the project," said Mayor David Roberts’ spokesperson, Michael Estevez, Thursday.
Can they do it?
Now that Robotic is back as a subcontractor, the question begs to be asked: can they finish the system, and will it work?
In October of last year, the HPA hired a private parking consulting firm to analyze what progress has been made on the garage and make determinations for the future. In addition to consulting, Net Tech Solutions of Danville, N.J., provides the public and private sectors with software and support for parking management systems.
In a project status report filed on August 10, John Coyle, a senior vice-president of Net Tech, reported to the HPA about the progress that Robotic has made and whether the proposed target date is realistic.
"I truly believe that the amount of work required to complete this project to contract specifications is out of the realm of Robotic’s staff," wrote Coyle. "The limited staff previously assigned by Robotic is insufficient to complete this project in the near future."
Coyle also said the system being installed is not a proven product. "The mode of operation in which the software for the garage was being completed was more of a ‘Code As We Go’ versus the installation of a proven product," he complained. "Once the specific configuration information for each parking slot was determined, the information was then entered for manual mode operation and then it was also necessary to transfer that same information for use in automated mode. It is my belief that the information entered for one operational mode should have been accessible to all modes of operation, which contributed to the delay in completing the project as scheduled. A project of this magnitude should have had a project plan to identify all tasks to be completed. Due to the absence of such a plan, numerous tasks have been identified as being incidental or just not planned for by Robotic."
Coyle wrote, "I don’t believe that the system that was installed at 916 Garden St. was a proven product, and that the HPA is being used as a development site to complete the Automated Parking Facility software/system product and at the expense and inconvenience of the HPA and their residents."
Robotic also has been involved in an automatic garage project in Florida.
Multiple attempts were made over the last few weeks to contact Robotic about their progress via e-mail and phone, but those calls were not returned.
Net Tech’s reports on the status of the garage were included in the HPA’s documents in the takeover agreement, which has been filed as public record. NetTech filed its last report roughly three weeks before the takeover agreement signed by the HPA and the insurance company.
The insurance company was privy to these reports and hired Retrotech as the general contractor. Retrotech hired Robotic as a subcontractor under their supervision.
Some sources have said that Robotic is the only engineering firm that has made progress on the technology necessary to install the automated function at 916 Garden St.
Once the takeover agreement was signed, the HPA no longer had any say on who was hired to work in the building. According to the takeover agreement, "Surety has entered into a ratification agreement with Robotic Parking, Inc. for the completion of part of the work described in a certain subcontract between the contractor [Retrotech] and Robotic Parking Inc."
Stalled at various points
The idea of an automated parking garage started out as the HPA was trying to get more parking spaces in to a small area. A conventional garage in the small residential space could only fit about 50 cars on the property, while an automated one could hold more than six times that amount.
By December of 2000, almost the entire physical structure had been erected, but the computerized system designed to pick up a car at the entrance on the first floor and deliver it to an empty spot on the upper level had yet to be installed.
At the end of September of 2000, 324 residents were winners in a lottery held by the HPA to assign spaces in the new garage. By December, there were more than 700 people on the waitlist. They were told at the end of last year that the garage "might open sometime in April" by representatives of the HPA.
But by October of 2000, major problems publicly surfaced. A dispute arose between Belcor and Robotic.
Belcor President Frank Belgiovine charged that Robotic "simply couldn’t do the job they said they could do." Robotic shot back that Belcor was just using them as a scapegoat. Gerhard Haag, the president of Robotic, contended that it was the poor planning on the part of Belcor that caused delay after delay. According to the original plans, Robotic was supposed to have 178 days to install the automated features of the garage after Belcor was done with construction of the physical building. Haag charged that mistakes on the part of Belcor cut that window to less than two weeks.
"Belcor knew that they were going to be a year late with this and they had no one to blame, so they decided to make us the bad guy," Haag said in October of 2000. "It’s too bad, because if they had not, the garage would be up and running by Nov. 11 [2000] if we have been left to do our work."
With no more major physical construction needed, and Belcor and Robotic engaged in litigation, work ground to a halt.
At least three engineering firms placed bids to finish the work. In January of this year, APS, a firm from Germany, came in with a $2.1 million bid, and another bid came from HK Industries for approximately $500,000.
Belcor hired HK, but after doing some initial work, city officials said that Belcor stopped making payments to HK.
It was at that time that in January of 2001 that the HPA turned over construction of the mostly finished structure and non-functioning automated system to the insurance company. It took until August for them to devise a takeover agreement that they found acceptable.
Caption:
WILL IT WORK – The Parking Authority has entered into a takeover agreement with Lumbermen’s Mutual Casualty Company of Lyndhurst to finish the garage at 916 Garden St. by 181 days from Sept. 10. Therefore, the garage should be completed in March.