Downtown library suit on hold until March; construction nearly complete

A mediation hearing originally scheduled for this week in the year-old lawsuit over the downtown library has been postponed until March.

Because the substantial completion date of the library was pushed back earlier this fall from mid-October until late December, 19th Judicial District Court Judge William Morvant put off the mediation hearing until March, according to J.E. Cullins, the private attorney representing the city-parish in the litigation. In the meantime, the case remains on hold.

In April 2018, a faulty weld led to a structural failure on the building site that held up construction on the $19 million structure for nearly a year, adding more than $2 million to the total cost. Seven months later, the city-parish sued its contractor, Buquet and Leblanc, and program manager, project architect WHLC Architecture-Schwarz/Silver. Buquet and LeBlanc was later dropped from the suit.

In court documents, the city-parish lays direct blame for the problem with three subcontractors on the project: Carter Miller, the connection engineer; Slay Steel, the steel fabricator that contracted with Carter Miller to provide the steel components that ultimately failed; and SCA, the structural engineer that was in charge of making sure the 40-foot cantilever would work.

But the suit ultimately blames the architects, however indirectly, for failing to catch the subcontractors’ mistakes. 

City officials say the library will hit the substantial completion milestone by December 24 and will open to the public this spring, though no exact date has been set.