‘Disheartening’: Black Contractor for Obama Center Says Racial Discrimination and Missteps By Engineering Firm Caused Delays That May Drive Him Out of Business In M Lawsuit
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‘Disheartening’: Black Contractor for Obama Center Says Racial Discrimination and Missteps By Engineering Firm Caused Delays That May Drive Him Out of Business In M Lawsuit
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A Black-owned subcontractor working on the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago filed a $41 million federal lawsuit against one of the construction firms managing the $830 million project, alleging that racial discrimination caused project delays and cost overruns that have led the subcontractor to near bankruptcy.

In his complaint, Robert McGee, owner of II in One Concrete, a Chicago-based subcontractor that has provided concrete and rebar services for the center since 2021, claims that Thornton Tomasetti, a New York-based structural engineering firm, has subjected his company and its joint venture partner, Concrete Collective, to “baseless criticisms and defamatory and discriminatory accusations” that have led II in One to suffer extreme financial loss and reputational harm.

II in One owner Robert McGee (left) with Barack Obama (Credit: Concrete Collective Facebook Screengrab)

The Obama Presidential Center is being built near Jackson Park in Chicago, and will consist of a museum, library, community and conference facilities, and will house the Obama Foundation, which is overseeing the center’s development, reported Fox News.

The lawsuit alleges that Thornton Tomasetti made an “improper and unanticipated decision” to impose new rules regarding rebar spacing and tolerance requirements” and subjected the company to “excessively rigorous and unnecessary inspection” and “extensive paperwork” that “impacted productivity and resulted in millions in losses.”

The suit says the engineering firm, “in an apparent attempt to cover up their own performance failures,” unfairly and falsely singled out the minority-owned II in One for criticism over construction issues while saying the “non-minority-owned contractors” on the project were better qualified and would not have had as many problems.

In a February 2024 memo attached to the complaint, Scott Schneider, an engineering project lead for Tomasetti, informed the Obama Foundation that increased construction costs and delays on the project “were all unequivocally driven by the underperformance and inexperience of” II in One and Concrete Collective.

It pointed to “extensive and wide-ranging” problems with the subcontractor’s work, including improperly poured and cured concrete, exposed rebar, cracked slabs and insufficiently reinforced walls, and a garage entry ramp wall poured at the wrong thickness. 

The memo included images of cracked concrete slabs and exposed rebar. 

Tomasetti said its requirements around concrete were detailed in its original construction documents, created in accordance with industry standards, and had not changed, noting that the subcontractors could have raised any issues they had with the design plan during the “robust preconstruction process” they participated in.

Schneider also said in the memo that Thornton Tomasetti and an architectural firm “bent over backwards to assist what everyone knows was a questionably qualified subcontractor team in areas where a more qualified subcontractor would not have required it.”

McGee and II in One Concrete counter that Thornton Tomasetti made unusual changes to the design plans for structural concrete work well after the project was underway.

The lawsuit contends that the work of Concrete Collective was complicated by Thornton Tomasetti’s “improper and unanticipated decision to impose rebar spacing and tolerance requirements that differ from the American Concrete Institute standards” that formed the basis of the firm’s $27 million bid for the project, which, “when coupled with Thornton Tomasetti’s excessively rigorous and unnecessary” inspection and review processes, cut down on II in One’s labor productivity and massively inflated the cost of the project.

To keep its work on the project going, in May of 2023 the concrete subcontractor initially requested compensation from the general contractor for nearly $20 million in additional costs it had incurred “as a result of the acts and omissions of” Tomasetti and Schneider, the lawsuit claims.

That request, passed along to the Obama Foundation, the owner of the project, was denied based on the “defamatory and discriminatory statements” of the structural engineering firm, McGee asserts.

He claims the financial losses of Concrete Collective then ballooned to $41 million in construction costs it was forced to self-fund by the time they had completed their work.

The lawsuit seeks a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages to force Thornton Tomasetti to pay for at least $41 million for the cost overruns and other financial harm it allegedly caused, as well as for the damage its defamatory statements wrought on the professional reputation of McGee and his company.

The complaint says II in One has been unable to obtain surety credit necessary to build on bonded, public projects, and has fully drawn down its bank line of credit.

Meanwhile, because McGee personally guaranteed the company’s line of credit, he may be forced to personally seek bankruptcy relief, in addition to closing II in One.

McGee further claims the discriminatory treatment by the defendants has harmed his reputation, and “will result in fewer minority-owned, local contractors being available to bid on many Chicago-area projects.”

The lawsuit notes that II in One, a 40-year-old company located in Chicago’s South Side that is owned by two African American men, began the project with a stellar reputation in the Chicago construction industry. It had experience helping to build dozens of high-profile public projects in the city, including the Midway and O’Hare airports, Wrigley Field, Millenium Park, Chicago Riverwalk, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and several Chicago Housing Authority buildings.

The company was chosen in part because Obama had made diversity and inclusion a hallmark of the project, pledging to hire local workers, contractors and minority-owned companies. 

Lakeside Alliance, the general contractor, agreed as a part of its contract to “creating economic opportunity and sustaining economic growth by striving to address and provide solutions to barriers that have historically prevented disadvantaged businesses from participating on projects of this magnitude, as well as creating opportunities and providing resources within the construction trades for residents of historically disadvantaged neighborhoods,” the complaint notes.

McGee remains proud of his company’s work “on a Project intended to honor the legacy of the United States’ first African American President,” the lawsuit says, but bemoans that,“In a shocking and disheartening turn of events, the African-American owner of a local construction company finds himself and his company on the brink of forced closure because of racial discrimination by the structural engineer.”

Thornton Tomasetti has not yet submitted a legal answer to the complaint filed the in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Illinois on January 17. 

In response to the lawsuit, Emily Bittner, vice president of communications at The Obama Foundation, disputed the claim of racial discrimination by Thornton Tomasetti. 

“If the foundation believed that any vendor was acting with a racist intent, we would immediately take appropriate action. We have no reason to believe that Thornton Tomasetti acted with racist intent,” she said in a statement.

‘Disheartening’: Black Contractor for Obama Center Says Racial Discrimination and Missteps By Engineering Firm Caused Delays That May Drive Him Out of Business In $41M Lawsuit

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