Word: cruz
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Eight months and a myriad of headaches later, the dining hall is open, waiting for the first hordes of hungry Quaddies. But it seems the saga hasn't quite ended. Though the administration figures a cost overrun of only about 2 per cent for the project, John B. Cruz Construction, the general contractor for the dining hall, is hurting. John B. Cruz, the owner-director of the company, says the project for Harvard has set his $3 million a year operation back a good two years. And theough he claims a portion of the responsibility, he says Harvard...
...sprinkler system in the building from the original spraying system to a sprinkler system that required extensive piping, causing a delay in other roofing work. In addition, he says Harvard procrastinated in its approval of one of the subcontractors by quibbling over the price being asked. In the end, Cruz says, he was forced to seek out another subcontractor, a friend, who was willing to charge a reduced rate. Both the redesign and the procrastination delayed the project two months, he says, because the ceiling and other work on the interior couldn't progress...
...company project manager's failure to requisition some needed materials at the start of the project due to family problems caused additional delays in items such as steel, an error for which Cruz claims full responsibility. However, Cruz alleges, "Harvard's attitude was that when they saw the job was going bad, instead of helping me by assisting with the cash flow, they thought that I couldn't handle the loss because I was a minority contractor." Cruz explains that the University's contract with him required monthly payments based on his requests. He says Harvard started "tightening the screws...
...Cruz blames himself for the low bid he placed for the construction job. He initially submitted one of the three lowest bids for the dining hall because he thought that a small loss on this job would be cancelled out by future possibilities bidding on Harvard jobs. He later reduced his bid by $15,000 during the final negotiations, in order to assure himself of the project. "Through my inexperience as a negotiator, I let myself," Cruz says. He adds that he was also not familiar enough with the type of project to realize that Harvard's six-month schedule...
...Cruz also blames himself for using his own minority workers on the architectural concrete work only because they were black, despite the fact that they were inexperienced. He says he tried to make a morally correct decision, which was, unfortunately, a financial mistake...