Construction shortfalls and delays at the Westwood Replacement
Hospital will cost UCLA an estimated $35 million to $45 million
more than anticipated by the time the hospital opens for operation
in 2007, said the hospital’s project director Thursday.
Most of the delays and construction problems at the hospital,
which will be renamed the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center upon
its completion, have resulted from new medical technology that
contractors must accommodate and from their unfamiliarity with new
seismic codes that the state implemented after the 1994 Northridge
earthquake, said Alvin Lee, the replacement hospital’s
project director under UCLA’s Health Sciences Capital
Projects.
The original cost of the hospital construction was approximately
$425 million, but it will end up costing an estimated $460 million
to $470 million when construction is complete at the end of 2005,
Lee said.
Contractors have not performed as well as expected, Lee said,
though he said he did not want to point fingers and said UCLA takes
responsibility for the delays.
Part of the delay resulted from a stop-work order issued by the
Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development this summer,
effectively halting some of the construction on the project. The
agency filed the order after being notified of work that had been
done without state approval.
The order resulted in an estimated 50 percent employee reduction
in hospital construction labor, Lee said, with the removal of about
300 employees from the work site.
Lee said contractors complied with the order within 72 hours,
but the university chose to keep the order in effect.
The hospital has also filed an estimated 400 non-compliance
notices for construction that has not met state standards since
construction began more than four years ago, Lee said, adding that
50 percent of the problems have already been fixed.
Because of the stop-work order, UCLA now must submit their
blueprints to the state for approval instead of proceeding with all
construction plans.
Lee said they have already submitted 100 sets of blueprints to
the contractors and that 40 more sets of drawings still need to be
approved.
Paul Coleman, deputy division chief for facilities development
for OSHPD, the state agency that oversees inspection of hospital
construction, said the order will remain in effect until
construction is completed.
Both university and state officials say the problems are being
fixed, and that all construction will be in compliance with state
law by its completion. The hospital was originally slated to be
completed in September 2004.
“UCLA has a significant number (of non-compliance
notices), but we are working through the issues and have a handle
on most of the issues,” Coleman said.
Robert Oedy, union organizer with the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers, said the hospital project is also riddled
with problems due to poor electrical work by non-union contractors
who do not comply with state standards.
Coleman said these problems have not been reported to him by his
staff. Lee also said he estimates by the nature of the work that
the same number of non-compliance orders would have been filed
regardless of the contractor working on the hospital’s
electrical unit.
Oedy said many of the problems at the Replacement Hospital stem
from consequences of the state’s policy of accepting the
lowest bidding contractor, and he wants to persuade university
administrators to issue specific language that would change the
current bidding process.