In many states, construction was deemed an essential activity throughout the crisis but, of great concern was the financial impact of the economy. The first week was crazy! I went through a list of 79 projects that we had in the works and dove deep into the financials for all of them. I prioritized projects based on cash positions, importance, and stage of construction. Now that we're seeing more states open for business we've began to re-start some of the projects that we placed on hold.
When I placed some projects on hold, some of the contractors reacted harshly and started sending demand letters for extended general conditions costs but now that they've been greenlighted to proceed they are having performance issues as crew refuse to show up and materials aren't keeping schedules. I saw a variety of reactions and claims from GC's and Subs - force majure was on the top of the list but as you've probably seen discussed force majure is a clause specific language and is not a common law practice. This means most private commercial contracts did not explicitly call out "global pandemic" in their FM clause and therefore couldn't use FM for exusable and compensable delay. Generally, the contractors on our projects have been great. Many taking a "no damage for delay" stance in exchange for reasonable expectations in performance. A line I used over and over, was "nobody had a risk model for this, so let's take it day by day and figure out how we both make it through together."
I may be a little more reluctant to engage some of the GC's that sent me nasty letters for pausing projects. It's reasonable to pause to re-evaluate when a global financial fallout is happening in real time and it was stupid of them to start fights.
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Jesse Kamm PhD, PMP, A.M.ASCE
Senior Vice President of Construction Management
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-12-2020 09:41 PM
From: Hala Abdo
Subject: Construction Best Practices during COVID-19
Hello,
I want to bring CONSTRUCTION to the discussion of the COVID19 situation.
How are you handling follow up in constructions as both site engineers and inspection?
I'll leave you with a photo that went viral online and how much I agree with it.
Share the methods you are using with fellow engineers and the ways that processes are affected ...
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Hala Abdo A.M.ASCE
Centreville VA
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