One company maintains that the Olympic Park Development and Enhancement Corporation “omitted” to disclose to it all the information concerning the “real extent” of the work that awaited it in anticipation of the repair of the tower. Montreal Olympic Stadium, which would have cost more than expected.
In an introductory motion filed earlier this week at the Montreal courthouse, Quebec-based general contractor Cimota is claiming more than $ 668,000 from the paragovernmental organization, noted The duty.
In June 2016, Cimota was awarded a contract to participate, alongside other companies, in the vast effort to renovate the tower of the Olympic Stadium in order to allow some 1,000 employees of Desjardins Group to settle there. The general contractor had the specific mandate to take care of the repair of the outer envelope of the tower, a site alone estimated at 47.2 million by the Olympic Park, according to its 2017 annual report.
The work, largely carried out using rope supports by specialized employees, involved repairing the concrete surface of the tower and removing the old waterproofing membrane to replace it with a new one. A huge crane with a height of 200 meters was also mobilized in 2016 as part of this project.
A tower in poor condition
However, the work did not go as planned. The construction company, which assures to have respected its contract to the letter, affirms to have suffered delays caused by various unforeseeable elements and beyond its control, indicates the request for justice. It notes in particular that “the conditions of execution of the work encountered by the plaintiff were not those foreseeable during the call for tenders”.
In this regard, Cimota underlines that the existing membrane of the tower of the Olympic Stadium, at the time of this work, presented “a state of superior degradation” compared to what it had been able to note by visiting the places upstream. the filing of its submission. Cimota also claims, through its attorneys, that the tender documents were not representative of the scale of the task facing the company.
The area of the areas to be treated on the tower of the Olympic Stadium, the height of which totals 165 meters, was notably “much greater than that estimated” at the start, as was “the scope of the steel repair work” company finally had to perform. Completed in 1987, more than 10 years after the 1976 Olympics, the tower of the Olympic Stadium remained essentially empty for more than 30 years thereafter, with the exception of the observatory which occupies two floors. Years during which his condition deteriorated.
Thus, maintains the company, the Society for the development and enhancement of the Olympic Park “failed to disclose the real extent of the work to be carried out and to provide it with the exact information”, which generated “significant additional costs. ”For the latter, in relation to the expenses foreseen by the contractor at the time of the submission of his tender.
No deal
In recent years, the company has therefore tried to obtain financial compensation from the company that manages the Olympic Park, a request that the latter has rejected each time. Cimota subsequently sent a formal notice to the organization on May 21, but the Olympic Park “still refuses to pay the amounts claimed”. Cimota is now turning to the Superior Court of Quebec to try to obtain financial compensation of $ 668,485.
Joined by The duty, the president and the managing director of Cimota refused to comment on the file, while their lawyers, of the firm KSA Avocats, remained silent in front of our requests.
The Olympic Park Development and Enhancement Corporation was also stingy with comments, “given that the case is in the process of legal process,” said its spokesperson, Cédric Essiminy. The latter also returned The duty the access to information request procedure concerning the details of the contract awarded in 2016 to Cimota.
In addition to the repairs to the Olympic Stadium tower, which allowed Desjardins to install it in 2018, major work remains to be done on the roof of the structure, which will be redeveloped in the coming years.