A lawsuit that Gramercy Group, a contractor that renovated the Clinton G. Martin Park pool, brought against the Town of North Hempstead was delayed by the pandemic, but now is moving forward with depositions, a lawyer for the plaintiff said.
Michael McKenna, who is representing Gramercy in the Bankruptcy Court case, said he has finished taking a deposition from an engineer, James Ahrens, who worked at a company called LiRo and was in charge of overseeing the project at the pool in New Hyde Park.
He plans to take the deposition of former North Hempstead Commissioner of Public Works Paul DiMaria as well as the engineer who designed the project. McKenna said he believes that will be all the depositions needed.
Ahrens said in his deposition that the town had not consulted him before declaring Gramercy to be in default on the Martin pool project, a move which contributed to the contractor declaring bankruptcy. He also said changes were made to the original contract for the project and Gramercy was told to go ahead with these changes, but the typical process for making such changes through Ahrens was not followed.
McKenna said he believes one problem was the town running out of funds to complete the project. McKenna said the town has brought a motion to withdraw the matter from Bankruptcy Court, which he believes is a move to slow the litigation process.
The Town of North Hempstead declined to comment on the suit.
McKenna said the courts have been holding hearings remotely on a “conference call basis” and was able to move through litigation since the pandemic started. A number of subcontractors that were involved in the project have become wrapped into the case.
Gramercy was awarded the contract to renovate the pool in 2017; its initial value was $20.7 million. On May 17, 2019, Gramercy declared bankruptcy and it filed suit against the town last July. Reports at the time said that the contractor encountered problems in the contract that caused delays in the project and extra expenses. The suit is for $2.8 million.
McKenna said Monday that he has attempted to get the town to agree to mediation, but the town has “been reticent” so far.
The suit said that the original contract did not contain detail of various components the town wanted included in the project, yet Gramercy was still expected to include them. The work then caused additional cost and time constraints for Gramercy, which the company says it was not reimbursed for.
Examples of issues that caused delays were the installation of shade structures around the pool and fire sprinkler systems in the indoor portions of the area.
The deposition said that the town continuously added aspects to the shade structures, which caused delays. The suit also claimed that the town asked that Gramercy demolish an overflow system at no additional cost.
Ahrens’ deposition said that Gramercy complained to LiRo that the town had continuously added more and more work to its scope. The original date for the project to be finished was April 2018, but by March, it was clear that would have to be delayed.
Even after the pool opened following its renovation, the town had changes it wanted made to the pool area, according to reports last year.
The case is ongoing and McKenna said that, if not for the novel coronavirus pandemic, the case would be “quite far along.”
