So, just so I am clear on this - posters on Hawkeyenation want the U of I to just pay for something without a fight that was "plagued by rampant design changes, miscommunication, budget overruns and missed deadlines — all of which bumped the project’s budget from $270.8 million to more than $360 million and delayed its opening by months" - Which actually turned out to be 370 million with contractors demanding more? They aren't fighting over chump change here at this point and it's not like they are stiffing them. While I agree the optics look bad, just because ya hate everything about the Iowa athletic department as of late doesn't mean Iowa should just lay back and take it. I'm not saying if Iowa is in the right or the wrong, but they aren't automatically in the wrong just because they've fucked up in the past on other things.
I Don't think I am taking sides here. Of course I have very little info. My first question re the children's hospital: Who requested the design changes? The presumption is the UIHC administration? And if it wasn't them, or the Board of Regents, they would still have to sign off on it. Correct?
Now I did hear through the grapevine that there was questionable work done over there and things had to be torn out and redone? Is that "Design changes"? Have no idea. But the U of I has people making a ton of money to be overseeing these projects.
I will say I contacted the project designer to voice my concerns over how they were redesigning the streets leading in and out of the main entrance.
If anyone has been there you will see how unnecessarily narrow, tight and confusing those streets are. Take a look at all the land they could have used to widen the streets and make it easier for the elderly, and sick, and out-of-town visitors, and transit vehicles for the disabled, to get in and out of there? Instead they used the majority of that land to plant multiple six figures worth of landscaping? THAT is incompetence imo. This is a pattern. I see it and read about things like this everday. Btw the guy in charge told me the sprinkler systems for the landscaping were already in place so there would be no modifications.
How many knew there was a lawsuit re the football facility? That surprised me. So yes, there are always two sides to a story. But it does seem to be a pattern and juries have decided against the university. But the fact that the U of I and Board of Regents are seemingly a monolith, there is a good chance they will find sympathy among judges and they already have to an extent.
RE monolith: Did the Johnson County attorney ever unseal all the records in the Satterfield/Everson case? You know those records that the U fought hard to keep from the public.
