Minnesota Insurance

PROVIDENCE - The Rhode Island Convention Center Authority, says it needs $ 15 million for the renovation of the Dunkin ‘Donuts Center, a cost of 24 percent is exceeded, the state comes as a legislator, fighting pay for education and health care.The authority, an independent agency, owns the Civic Center, upon request, preparing the approval of legislators to borrow money and taxpayers are not required to repay the new debt .

This would mean that the legislators - already better proposed cuts to social services taking plans A $ 360 million deficit - with a debt of 1.2 million in annual payments for the next 30 years, according to projections by the house tax advisers, Michael O’Keefe.

“It’s a lot of stress on the budget,” said Rep. Steven Costantino, D-Providence, chairman of the Committee on Finance house. “This is a significant overrun.

The ambitious, three years revising the Dunk in downtown Providence - host Providence College basketball, hockey Providence Bruins, circuses and rock concerts - includes new luxury suites, new seats and a pedestrian bridge connecting the arena with the convention center.

During the summer of 2004, the Authority has estimated the project cost to $ 58 million, based on a study by Ellerbe Becket, a consultancy firm, Minnesota.

With the following spring, when the authority is invited to the state for permission to borrow money to buy the arena of the city of Providence and begin the repair, renovation already jumped the price of $ 62 million, an increase due to inflation and the rising cost of construction materials. The price is now around $ 77 million.

The revision is expected to be completed by December 2008, with the building are completed later this month, it is possible to renovate the lobby crews and suites and bridge.

But costs ballooned - the result of a constant and unexpected rise in costs for materials, and several cost estimates wrong Ellerbe in the feasibility study, the Authority said.

James P. McCarvill, the authority’s executive director, said the submission of plans for financing demand in the coming days. The hearings before the House of Representatives and Senate Finance Committees could in the next two weeks.

“We options,” said McCarvill in a two hour interview with the authority in regard to the central Providence The Westin Hotel. “We need more money. Either way, or we’re not the whole project. ”

McCarvill, said the increased cost of materials, including steel and concrete, with a minimum of $ 5 million cost overrun.

Although the feasibility study of projected increases, he said, it did not believe that the impact of the reconstruction of New Orleans, the pace of construction in India and China, or even a construction boom in the downtown Providence, costs for local labour, he said.

These increases have influenced other major construction projects in the state, a contribution to the extreme overruns, said officials of State. The transfer of Highway 195, for example, it is expected that costs $ 600 million, double the original estimates.

“It is becoming increasingly a global economy,” said Roger R. Warren, executive director of Rhode Island Builders Association. China and India, he said, “The use of steel and concrete, just like us.”

BUT a number of other factors, excessive costs of Dunkin ‘Donuts Center project, starting with the misfortune of serious mistakes in planning.

As a result of a false state fire code compliance advisers anheuerte Ellerbe, the Authority has no budget for building sprinklers on the performance of space, said McCarvill. New rather than simply the ceiling of $ 200000 jobs, Construction Manager Gilbane Inc. on a $ 2.2 million to upgrade safety testing of fire and spray new smoke detector.

The design for additions to be wrong in estimating the size of luxury suites and new Food Court, McCarvill said. This error was not discovered until the total cost was calculated and that the funding request, has added several million dollars of additional costs, especially steel.