By Juan Montoya
Even before the first spadeful of dirt is turned over on the new Brownsville-South Padre Island International Airport, changes in the original design have ballooned from $27.5 million to $38 million, including unforeseen costs associated with the hiring outside the procurement process of Origo Works, an architectural firm associated with Mayor Tony Martinez.
The request fro the change order will be considered during tonight's meeting of the City of Brownsville Commission at 6 p.m. in commission chambers, on the second floor of the Brownsville City Hall – Old Federal Building, located at 1001 East Elizabeth Street.
CH2MHILL of Englewood, Co. requested the change order from Airport Director Bryant Walker in a letter dated Sept. 21 saying that original terminal was originally planned to be approximately 65,000 square feet with another 9,000 square feet designated by Custom and Border Protection for Federal Inspection Service (FIS) areas.That, however, has changed and now the terminal is planned for $85,000 square feet and the FIS areas to 23,000 square feet. The additional design and architectural work will increase the fees by CH2MHILL by $850,925.00, bringing ti from the original $1,650,000 to $2,500,925.00, which represents approximately 6.6 percent of the estimated construction value.
"The other item that has caused additional design and management effort is the coordination with our local architect, Origo Works," wrote James Kirshbaum, the engineer for CH2MHILL. "As requested by the mayor, we engaged Origo Works to help incorporate "local" architectural features and elements into the original design. This effort extended the conceptual design phase of the project by approximately five months, resulting in significant additional efforts by CH2M, Corgan and Origo Works."
(Click on graphic on right to enlarge.)
It is worth noting that Javier Huerta, one of the principals of Origo Works, graduated from St. Joseph Academy before graduating from the University of Texas at Austin. He and his firm also list work done on the mayor's businesses, including Spanky's Burgers and Rincon de la Paz off Palm Boulevard. Both businesses list their principal as Martinez, and list his law firm's address at 1206 E. Van Buren Street as their mailing address.
The letter from Kirshbaum seems to indicate that the firm hired Origo Works to lend a "local" flavor to the terminal's design and delayed the project for a full five months.
During the procurement stage, there was no mention of Origo Works answering requests for RFPs by the city. The company was apparently hired by CH2MHILL at the urging of Martinez outside the procurement process.
It is interesting to note that one of the projects Origo Works lists "on the board" is the St. Joseph Academy Alumni Student Center, the school which Martinez attended.