C.P. contractor seeking pay for VA clinic work

The head of local steel fabricating company wants answers from an Ohio-based developer and general contractor after doing work on a new Crown Point outpatient clinic for veterans.

Robert Scott, president of Scott Steel Services Inc. in Crown Point, said his firm filed a mechanic's lien Oct. 28 on the Adam Benjamin Jr. Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic.

Although the new building opened in September, Scott said the developer, Crown Point VA Co. LLC, owes his family-owned steel fabrication firm more than $133,000.

Scott Steel furnished and installed the structural steel for the building and other metal structures, including stairs, ladders and rails. The firm has been paid more than $651,000 for services provided, but Scott said several subcontractors still are owed money.

"Things were going along fine and the last payment we received was last January," Scott said. "We kept getting promises from the contractor that payment was coming. In August, everyone realized that there was not going to be more payments on the job."

Calls placed to the project's prime contractor and designer, Welty Building Co., of Akron, Ohio, weren't returned.

Thomas Crist, a Cleveland-based attorney for Carnegie Management and Development Corp., which incorporated Crown Point VA, said Friday in a statement that Crown Point VA obtained a bond from Welty for more than $12 million to give subcontractors security they would be paid. Crist said after work started, subcontractors and vendors complained "en masse" that Welty hadn't fully paid them for work. He said Welty claims it should be paid more than the contractually guaranteed maximum price.

Crist also said Crown Point VA has paid millions of dollars to subcontractors and achieved substantial project completion with intermittent cooperation from Welty.

"Crown Point (VA) intends to take the necessary steps to make sure Welty pays its subcontractors what they are owed, that the VA and the taxpayers receive exactly that to which they are entitled, and will enforce its contract with Welty to the letter," Crist said in the statement.

The Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago supervises activities at the Crown Point clinic, which leases building space from Crown Point VA.

After receiving complaints about the matter, U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Merrillville, said in a statement his office is working with the VA to make sure subcontractors are paid. Visclosky said he was supportive of the clinic expansion, which has improved the quality of health care services available for local veterans.