Fulfilling a prophecy made by myself, The Capital reports today that the city is being sued by Site Realty, the operator of the market house, for a breach of contract deriving from the continued inadequacy of the HVAC unit. The designers of the unit failed to understand that cooking equipment emits heat, and the plaintiff seeks a $2 million remedy for lost rental revenue from tenants who left the market house in defiance of the unbearable summertime temperatures.
There are some peculiarities surrounding this lawsuit that remain to be explained. The mayor claims that the city waited to fix the HVAC unit as a result of written instructions from Site Realty that specified a time table to do the work. She even introduced R-66-07, which would authorize her to unilaterally make any changes to the lease deemed necessary to fix the HVAC unit.
The mayor called the lawsuit "strange", and I would have to agree with her based on the facts available at this time. Strange--maybe, but certainly not surprising. The air conditioner has been under-performing, taking up parking spaces, destroying the already low aesthetic beauty of the building, and otherwise deterring patrons for a year and a half. Furthermore, the city is no stranger to construction-gone-bad lawsuits, as it is currently involved in multiple actions with the police station contractors.
How hard can it be to get this thing fixed?
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