Fairfax County supervisors have agreed to a set of changes to the $115 million expansion of the county courthouse that will likely drive up the cost of the much-delayed project by additional millions.
After a closed-door discussion Monday, supervisors reached a proposal on how much to pay Dick Corp. for a series of change orders to the massive courthouse add-on. A source familiar with the talks said the orders would increase the total cost of the contract by about 3 percent.
Fairfax officials would not comment on how much the contractor proposed for the new work, though Providence District Supervisor Linda Smyth said the figure was “a lot more than what we offered.”
“They thought that they were owed more than just what the change orders required,” Smyth said.
A list of the specific changes was not available Tuesday.
The cost escalation nevertheless represents another snag — albeit expected — on the project’s first phase, which is now expected to open in the spring after seeing about a year’s worth of delays.
“This has been a very, very large project,” Smyth said. “And given all the players, certainly there was some expectation that the schedule might not go quite as quickly as what we had hoped.”
The first phase will add a five-story structure next to the Jennings Judicial Center and will put all the county’s courtrooms into a single building. The second phase involves renovating the existing judicial center.
A county spokeswoman refused to confirm the amount of the proposed settlement until Dick Corp. agrees to it. The company did not return calls for comment Tuesday.
