A lawsuit involving the concrete and rebar contractor on the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), Chicago, is a study in contract awarding criteria for challenging cast-in-place structural and architectural work. It highlights the importance of proven field experience coupled with firm understanding of construction documents respecting ACI 318, Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete and Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute guidance.
The 276,000-sq.-ft. OPC spans a mid-rise museum tower and low-rise library and other public spaces. It has unfolded since 2021 on a 19-acre Chicago lakefront site near the South Side neighborhood where Barack Obama warmed up for eight White House years through Illinois Senate and U.S. Senate tours. Leading the project are Lakeside Alliance and Concrete Collective, joint ventures respectively involving ENR 400 contractors Turner Construction and W.E. O’Neill, plus industry and community partners meeting criteria of The Barack Obama Foundation, owner. Lakeside Alliance is general contractor and construction manager.
Concrete Collective partners include a joint venture of Chicago-based II in One Contractors Inc. and II in One Rebar Inc. The businesses are lead plaintiffs in a U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois complaint alleging that actions of New York-based OPC structural engineer Thornton Tomasetti Inc. have brought “extreme financial loss and reputational harm.” Plaintiffs further allege tortious interference with contract and business relationships per the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and seek a $40.75 million payment plus punitive damages.
The allegations are rooted in a February 2024 Thornton Tomasetti memo responding to Lakeside Alliance contentions that the engineer was responsible for concrete construction challenges at the OPC site. It traces the GC/CM’s lack of trade coordination early on and refusal to establish a system delineating requests for information versus those for corrective field work and substitutions. By early 2024, the memo notes, nearly 600 of 1,300 RFIs conveyed to the engineer and lead designer Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, New York, entailed corrective field work or substitution. Engineer and architect RFI responses “expended hundreds of hours reviewing, analyzing [and] re-designing.” The Obama Foundation acknowledged the need for Thornton Tomasetti to provide additional construction administration to review contractor submittals tied to the RFIs.
Among problematic concrete work at the OPC site, Thornton Tomasetti cites a mat pour exhibiting curing heat issues; garage entry ramp placed to the wrong thickness; incorrect rebar layering in walls; exposed rebar in architectural concrete sections; and, incorrect repairs on an extensively cracked slab. Ultimately, the firm’s memo calls out Lakeside Alliance for criticizing Thornton Tomasetti’s “applying the correct engineering standard.”
The Thornton Tomasetti document provides the District Court context on OPC contract language, concrete construction specifics and site experiences. The II in One complaint, submitted nearly one year later, makes little attempt to counter engineer responses to Lakeside Alliance claims. If Thornton Tomasetti misrepresents the description or sequence of site activities spurring costly corrective actions on concrete slabs and elements, we don’t see plaintiffs’ attorneys setting the record straight in their main court filing.
Lakeside Alliance has consistently stressed that at least 50 percent of OPC work is performed by Chicago residents. The issues noted in District Court documents do not indicate that the Obama Foundation and Lakeside Alliance considered a museum and library design whose concrete construction demands matched the capabilities of the labor pool they envisioned.