Sta Offers Some Expensive Lessons

Not long ago, the Spokane Transit Authority earned some praise for cost containment, responsiveness and good planning. Today, those gold stars are looking a bit tarnished.

Italian tile will do that.

The mere purchase of the luxury flooring for the downtown bus Plaza flies directly in the face of the message that taxpayers have been trying to send to government agencies and officials over the last year or more. Enough extravagance. Cut spending. Be frugal.

The $140,000 estimated overrun for the Italian tile and related concrete problems is just a fraction of the $2 million that’s been tacked onto the Plaza’s completion costs since October. And there may be more to come.

A review of 1,500 pages of construction and design documents, reported in Sunday’s Spokesman-Review, showed STA has approved 129 change orders to correct construction and design problems. The number will probably reach 200 by the time the Plaza opens.

Compare that to Spokane’s most recent outrage, the 17 percent cost overrun in remodeling the downtown Spokane Post Office building. It suffered from a mere 104 change orders. At its current rate, STA is 30 percent over budget in the building phase of the project.

But, perspective is important. The project hasn’t been in limbo for the last century; it just seems that way. Once STA admitted it couldn’t justify or finance the multi-use high rise it initially dreamed of, the agency settled on an alternate plan.

And, while it’s difficult to defend a four-month delay while STA squabbled over color schemes, some hold-ups were unforeseen and unavoidable.

Others, though, may have been avoided had STA hired an independent construction manager to troubleshoot from the beginning. The city’s new library, in contrast, came in $1 million under budget by spending $400,000 up front for some outside advice.

STA put its in-house architect, Art Thoma, in charge. Thoma dismisses criticisms as “hindsight.”

Technically, he’s right; it’s impossible to go back and correct mistakes. But something should be learned from these.

So, let’s look ahead. STA still has problems to deal with in getting the Plaza open. Instead of engaging in finger pointing with architects, contractors and designers, STA’s board should take charge. Everyone has made mistakes here, but the ultimate responsibility falls on STA to ensure a cost-effective, efficient, well-built and, yes, attractive, building once the money is spent. And there may be opportunities in the next few months to save some money, rather than spend more.

That way, we may just enjoy the lovely Italian tile.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Anne Windishar/For the editorial board