TD Place is just the latest CFL stadium project beset by lawsuits

Do you want to build a CFL stadium? Well, you'd better have some lawyers. James Bagnall has a fascinating Ottawa Citizen piece from last week on the array of lawsuits that have sprung up over the construction of TD Place (and the rest of the Lansdowne Park project), which include one company that went bankrupt, another one that lost 85 per cent of its workforce, eight other companies that either have sued or are suing the primary contractor, and the primary contractor suing the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG, which led the project and owns the Redblacks, the Ottawa Fury, the Ottawa 67s and more). While the Ottawa lawsuit details are significant in their own right, though, they're even more notable as part of a trend. All three CFL stadiums opened in the last three years (in Winnipeg, Ottawa and Hamilton) have featured significant litigation, as has the 2011 renovation of Vancouver's B.C. Place. That's a disturbing trend, and one that perhaps bodes poorly for the ongoing stadium project in Regina, the ongoing one in Toronto, and the contemplated one in Calgary.

First, let's discuss what's going on in Ottawa. Here's a well-constructed infographic explaining the situation from Bagnall and Dennis Leung, accompanying that Citizen piece:

Essentially, these lawsuits are arising from a dispute between OSEG and Pomerleau (the primary contractor) over who would pay unbudgeted expenses that arose from unexpected work and design changes. Both said the other should pay; Pomerleau said the extra bills from the changes should have been paid by OSEG, while OSEG maintained Pomerleau was responsible thanks to accepting a fixed-price contract. With the dispute going on, Pomerleau stopped paying subcontractors' invoices for the extra work, leading to a bankruptcy (Spring Valley Classic Custom, a 70-worker company that built the stadium's wooden veil and went bankrupt in October largely as a result of unpaid invoices), a massive downsizing, (Am-Tech Electrical went from 170 employees to less than 25, and is now being sued by its own suppliers) and more. Some of the lawsuits have been settled, but many are still pending. Pomerleau told The Citizen it “has resolved, or is in the process of resolving, all commercial issues with its sub-trades" and "trust[s] that all contracts will be closed within the next 60 days," so this may be wrapped up before too long, but it's still a fascinating web of just what can go wrong on a stadium project.

It's far from the only one, too. Winnipeg's Investors Group Field, which opened in 2013 and hosted the Grey Cup this November, already underwent some major renovations ahead of the big game (to partly fix drainage and flooding issues, plus do a $350,000 enclosure of the press box), and it's undergoing many more this winter. In October, the Manitoba government guaranteed a $35 million loan to fix the stadium's structural issues, including drainage, cracked concrete, and insufficient insulation. The stadium ownership consortium (which includes the province, the Bombers and the University of Manitoba) launched a major lawsuit against architect Ray Wan and builder Stuart Olson Construction in March, alleging they had already spent $4.7 million on repairs at that point and that significant further repairs (the $35 million) were still needed. That lawsuit remains before the courts. Also, that stadium was initially set to open in 2012, but didn't open until 2013 thanks to a variety of delays.

Meanwhile in Hamilton, subcontractor The Lancaster Group filed a $1.84 million lawsuit this July against the main contractors, Infastructure Ontario, and the city. That lawsuit claims there were "major defects" in the steel used, which led to many of the delays that pushed the stadium opening back from July 2014 until September (and even then, only with a partial occupancy permit), and that its workers weren't paid either for normal work or for the overtime they put in to finish the stadium. It's in progress as well. Tim Hortons Field only received its full occupancy permit in April 2015, and there were further disputes over how complete it was in July, but it seems things are going well there now.

In Vancouver, the 2011 renovations of B.C. Place, which wound up costing $514 million compared to the initial $100 million estimate, also led to multimillion-dollar lawsuits between contractors and subcontractors. Those lawsuits were eventually settled out of court in February 2014, and the refurbished stadium has received plenty of positive reviews. Still, it came at a hefty price.

Some of this litigation and controversy is perhaps to be expected. Stadiums are massive projects with price tags in the hundreds of millions, and they're projects that usually involve a wide range of funders and stakeholders, which can lead to more miscommunications and complications than a project run by a single entity. They're also increasingly projects designed for multiple uses (all of these stadiums were designed for soccer as well as football), and they're projects where any delay is highly noticeable and significant thanks to sports' tightly-scheduled events. Moreover, stadiums are always going to be more in the public spotlight than, say, your typical government building, and they typically have a lot more complications thanks to their scale and their usage. Still, the last five years in CFL stadium construction may have produced some nice buildings, but every single new stadium (and the B.C. Place renovation) has had major issues, cost overruns, delays, and some form of litigation. That should be a warning sign for everyone involved in the Regina and Toronto projects to be extremely careful to get things right the first time around, and it may also hurt the chances of future desired stadium projects like Calgary's.