Officials of Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the agency overseeing the cleaning and deconstruction of the former Deutsche Bank tower near the World Trade Center site announced they may need as much as $35 million more in public money to finish tearing down the doomed building.

At its board meeting June 11, the LMDC authorized sinking another $20 million into its contract with Bovis Lend Lease, the project’s general contractor, raising the total cost of the decontamination and dismantling to more than $173 million. Additionally, LMDC President David Emil said during the meeting that the agency would need to authorize between $10 million and $15 million more for the project by the end of the summer.

LMDC executive director Avi Schick said the agency is hoping to cobble together funding for the increases with a complex combination of proceeds from insurance claims and federal grant money received from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. If that cannot be done, Schick said the LMDC would need to request additional federal funding, a process that would take months to complete and could delay the building’s demolition even longer.

Legal troubles, fires and other accidents have already put the demolition years behind schedule. 

“We have several sources that we hope to tap for funding,” Schick said. “On a cash basis, we won’t need this funding for at least several months, however we believe that over the next several weeks, we’ll have to develop a strategy [for payment].”

LMDC board members voted unanimously in favor of the increase for Bovis despite recent revelations of an investigation into the company’s billing practices on five major projects around the city, including the Deutsche Bank deconstruction and parts of the build-out of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Asked to comment on the investigation, a Bovis representative would only say that the company is “fully cooperating with the US Attorney's investigation. Therefore, it is not appropriate for us to comment at this time."

According to a report in the New York Daily News, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell’s office has demanded that Bovis turn over payroll and billing documents related to the two projects at the World Trade Center site, as well as the company’s work at Citi Field, the New York University Medial Building and a shopping mall in Queens.

“We have directed out attorneys to find out what they can about the scope of the investigation,” Schick said. “We don’t know more than what you’ve seen in the newspapers at this point.”

A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office would not say if charges have yet been filed against the company or any of its employees.

On June 15, James Abadie, Bovis' Prinicipal-in-Charge of its New York operations, resigned suddenly from the company.

Recent Delays at the 130 Liberty Street Deconstruction

Feb. 5: Crews removing sheetrock on the second floor of the building accidentally cut out a six-foot section of the same standpipe that cost two FDNY firefighters their lives in 2007. Work is stopped on the site for one week. Jan. 27: Workers fail to properly secure part of the building’s façade before cutting into it. Work is partially stopped for two days. Feb. 27: City building inspectors discover workers failed to install a guardrail on a hole in the 14th floor. Work is partially stopped on the site for five days. April 2: A small electrical fire knocks out power to part of the building. Work is suspended on the site for 27 days. June 3: The motor on a battery-operated scissor lift overheats, producing smoke and causing a full evacuation of the building. Work is stopped for one day. June 9: Responding to reports of smoke outside the building, firefighters discover a malfunction in part of the building’s negative air pressure machinery, which produces a hermetic seal on the toxic portions of the tower. Work is stopped for one day.

"Bovis Lend Lease’s operations and strong commitment to ongoing projects in New York City will not be affected by the change in leadership in the New York office," said Mary Costello, a Bovis spokeswoman, regarding Abadie's departure from the company.

It was unclear what, if any, impact potential legal action against Bovis on the part of the government could have on the company’s projects at the World Trade Center Site or its contract with the LMDC. Schick said that he and Emil had met recently with Bovis CEO Michael Bellaman, who told them “Bovis is committed to getting to the bottom of it, whatever that means.”

“Wherever it goes, none of this will distract [Bovis] from ultimately completing the job,” Schick said, paraphrasing Bellaman. “He just wanted to make that clear to us in person.”

Since the beginning of the year, the LMDC has lost approximately three months off of its revised schedule for the project. In December, agency officials said crews would be finished cleaning the building in April, and that the demolition would be done by mid-October. But between January 1 and June 15, work has been stopped on the site at least four times for a range of mishaps and equipment failures (See Box). The agency’s latest schedule, according to Schick, predicts the building will be completely decontaminated in July and dismantled by January of next year.

“We’ve impressed upon the contractors the need to have the utmost care in everything that goes on here,” Schick said.

The Bovis investigation is not the first time a contractor affiliated with the 130 Liberty Street project has found itself the target of an investigation. The original contractor for the decontamination and destruction of the building, John Galt Co., was scrapped after the August 2007 fire that killed two firefighters and was replaced by LVI Environmental. Two Galt executives were indicted in December 2008 for manslaughter in connection with the fire, and a third was charged with turning in phony supply orders to the LMDC.