A subcontractor who worked on former President Barack Obama’s (D) presidential center in Chicago, Illinois, has reportedly shut down operations and laid off workers in the latest drama linked to the property.
Adamson Plumbing Contractors owner Mike Owen said his company closed down, laid off 25 union workers, and had to abandon multiple other construction jobs due to the business being owed nearly $4 million, Fox News reported Thursday.
“Before the center opened, Owen said the project had left his company with $3.9 million in losses tied to delays, rework, labor overruns, and changing project demands. He said he spent months negotiating with Lakeside Alliance, the project’s construction manager, before going public after failing to reach a resolution,” the article read.
Indeed, the center was reportedly also costing taxpayers more and more money as it put out a call for unpaid volunteers even though its chief executive would be paid a salary of $740,000, according to reports.
In regard to Owen’s battle over the nearly $4 million payment dispute, his company that performed the work under the name Marsh-Adamson, has filed a $1.72 million mechanic’s lien against the center’s property in an effort to be paid for the work.
“Laying off close to 30 people is something that no owner in our industry wants to do. It’s a hard thing to do, especially when you know you can finish them and the company can still make money. But we were put in a pretty bad corner,” he said.
Meanwhile, Obama had reportedly wanted to make the center so big it made an architect “uneasy,” per Breitbart News:
Obama’s demands made the architect “uneasy,” adding more complications to the planned $850 million Obama Presidential Center, a mammoth, granite-clad complex in Jackson Park in Chicago, Illinois.
Tod Williams, one of the architects, said that Obama urged designers to “up our ante” from the presidential center’s earliest designs. The push for increasing the scale of the presidential center created tension, he said.
“He was saying we should up our ante,” Williams told the New Yorker. He added that the continued pressure to up the scale made him uneasy.
The former president and his wife, Michelle, welcomed numerous celebrities and other famous people for the center’s grand opening in June “even as the Center has been engulfed in controversy for allegedly stiffing many black-owned building contractors for their construction fees,” according to Breitbart News.
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