Does it look complete?
It has been a while since I have heard their ads but the tagline was always "on budget and on time". Isn't that a novel idea. Instead we got Landino and Centerplan. Maybe their tagline should be " no completion without litigation".
Centerplan has been a disaster from the start and the Dunkin Donuts Stadium was most likely a project they were never equipped to tackle from the beginning.
A quick trip around the perimeter of the project today should tell anyone that they are in over their head. The video below shows how far the project is from completion. Some contractors I spoke with today at the site suggested August might be a more reasonable completion time.
The big question is where to go now? I think everyone will agree that Mayor Luke Bronin inherited a major mistake when he took office. With that being said, he now has to fix it. The project was too far along and we were already on the hook for Segarra's Follies to back out in December.
But now it is Luke's. I don't think Mayor Bronin can pass the mess off on the previous Council and Mayor any longer. Bronin has to accept ownership and he has several remedies open to him to gain the trust back from his constituents., To do nothing and coast hoping completion will eventually happen is not one of those options.
As I said before, Centerplan is a disaster. Landino was never equipped to do projects of this size. Just because you are a former State Rep. and have political connections does not necessarily make someone a developer. It might grease the skids to be awarded government contracts, but Landino has already proven he can't deliver on several State of Connecticut projects.
But yet Deller and Segarra awarded him one , if not the, largest development project in Hartford in years. And once again, Landino failed. Even if there is no baseball played in Hartford this year ( which I am told there will not be) Landino and Centerplan needs to be sent on their way tomorrow and the performance bond they provided needs to be called and recover as much as possible of Hartford's potential losses.
I am not optimistic that Saundra Kee-Borges and Pedro Segarra protected us well enough legally to prevent major losses. Something tells me the Solomon's had better lawyers than SKB to protect their interests.
The Stadium Authority should have been replaced months ago by people that recognized a B/S storm when they were fed one. Anyone that knew anything about construction should have known months ago this wasn't going to happen. Too many critical deadlines were missed and just walking by the site, any of the Authority members should have seen the construction was not progressing properly.
Name me one member of that Authority who has ever been involved in a project of this size before or even has any construction experience. When Police Officers working outside the site tell me it was the most disorganized project they have ever seen months ago, someone on the Authority should have been hearing the same thing, and been concerned.
I. Charles Matthews has been a total failure to the people of Hartford when he was entrusted to chair the Stadium Authority.
The law suits will begin flowing soon on this one, and Mayor Bronin needs to be a Mayor of action on this one, not a politician rewarding people that delivered votes and donations. Too much is riding on the reputation of our City to sit balk and just talk.
The time for talk has long passed, the plan of action should have been already worked on and in place to start tomorrow to remedy the situation. This requires some tough and decisive actions on the part of Mayor Bronin but he was elected to protect the interests of the people of the City of Hartford and not Landino or Centerplan or anyone else.
Go YardGoats, goodbye Centerplan.

