Contractors are laying stone, planting trees, restoring roads and installing mechanical systems. The Capitol Visitor Center remains a work in progress even though it’s more than a year past its original scheduled opening, and now the federal government’s watchdog agency is warning of more delays ahead.
The planned April 2007 opening of the $556 million underground facility might be pushed back again due to change orders, holdups on major safety systems and other unknowns, the Government Accountability Office said Friday.
In its update, the GAO reported that center construction has accelerated “but we continue to believe, as we said at the March hearing, that the proposed opening dates do not allow enough time to complete several critical activities and to address problems, challenges, risks, and uncertainties.
“Accordingly, we plan to reassess the project’s schedule again this summer,” the report said. The GAO provides regular project updates to the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the legislative branch, chaired by Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.
Despite some “schedule slippage,” Architect of the Capitol Alan Hantman told the subcommittee there would be no change to the estimated opening date at this time.
“While the pace of construction sometimes doesn’t meet our expectations, our contractors do continue to make steady progress throughout the facility,” Hantman said in his testimony.
Congress broke ground on the 580,000-square-foot center in 2002. Since construction started, there have been 180 design changes — another 14 are now under review — and 80 contract modifications, according to the GAO. The estimated cost has risen more than $200 million, while the opening has been pushed back more than two years.
The project, a massive, fence-shielded undertaking, has been riddled with challenges and criticized for unrealistic scheduling. One particularly thorny issue was stone delivery, which took months longer than expected. The center will house complex heating, air conditioning, ventilation, fire protection and security systems. If the construction team “encounters any significant problems with their functioning, either individually or together … the project could be seriously delayed,” the GAO said.
The report goes on to say the fire protection system design had not been submitted as of last week.
Capitol Visitor Center
» Will hold 4,000 people
» Will have an exhibition gallery, orientation theaters, 600-seat cafeteria, gift shops and meeting space
