The Broward County School Board canceled design contracts for five renovation projects, creating more delays for the troubled $800 million bond program.
LIMCO Engineering, a Jamaican-based company with an office in Lighthouse Point, has experienced “significant delays” in preparing design documents for Hollywood Hills Elementary, North Andrews Gardens Elementary in Fort Lauderdale, Wilton Manors Elementary, Indian Trace Elementary in Weston and Tequesta Trace Middle in Weston. The district had given the company contracts valued at $1.5 million for the five schools.
The School Board agreed to the termination Tuesday without discussion. LIMCO President Courtney Currie could not be reached.
This makes seven of eight contracts the district has canceled with LIMCO. In August, the School Board terminated its contract with the company for Sheridan Technical High School and Deerfield Beach High, forcing the district to hire new architecture or engineering firms to design the schools.
LIMCO still has one active project in the district, Western High School. The company has made significant progress on that project so the district didn’t want to start over, said Frank Girardi, executive director of the district’s bond program.
The district issued the contracts with the company between September 2017 and February 2018.
“Shortly after the projects were initiated, it became apparent that LIMCO was experiencing significant delays in the preparation of design documents for all five” projects, largely due to problems with its subcontractors, according to a district document.
District officials said they met with LIMCO multiple times between August and March, but no improvement was made.
Despite complaints that LIMCO was failing to deliver, the district terminated both contracts with the company “for convenience” instead of “for cause.” Canceling for convenience means the district has to pay penalties to the company.
General Counsel Barbara Myrick said she didn’t know the reason the contract wasn’t canceled for cause. She said another lawyer handled that.
The district’s public information office did not respond to a list of questions submitted by the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday.
stravis@sunsentinel.com, 561-243-6637 or Twitter @smtravis