Construction Firm Sues City of Brentwood Over Flood Plain Project
Date Posted: December 19, 2023
Posted In: Discussion, News, Organizations, Regionalism,
St. Louis Business Journal: The St. Louis-based construction company hired to overhaul a flood plain has sued the city that managed the project, claiming a defective design.
Keeley Construction, one of the largest construction firms in St. Louis and a division of Keeley Cos., filed suit Oct. 31 in St. Louis County Circuit against the city of Brentwood for breach of contract on the Deer Creek flood plain construction project. The firm is also suing for breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
The $80 million flood plain project, part of the larger $430 million Brentwood Bound redevelopment that would revamp the city’s Manchester Road corridor, was designed to mitigate decades of damage from floods in the area. By lowering the grade around the creek, the idea was to prevent flash flooding onto Manchester.
Existing businesses in the Manchester Road corridor have also filed suit against the city, contesting the city’s declaration that the area is blighted, which paves the way for possible eminent domain for the Brentwood Bound redevelopment, envisioned as a hotel, apartment complexes, office buildings and retail, from St. Louis-based developer Green Street.
In August 2020, the city hired Keeley for the first phase of the flood mitigation work, in a contract valued at nearly $17.2 million, Keeley said in the lawsuit. The work consisted of demolition, mass excavation, construction of a retention facility, installation of storm sewers and sanitary sewers, stabilizing a stream bank, constructing a trail, access improvements and landscaping, in an area east Mary Avenue, south of Manchester and west of Breckenridge Industrial Court, according to the court filing.
But work that Keeley carried out in accordance with the design created by the city was damaged or destroyed by multiple rainfall events during construction, the company alleged in the lawsuit. The lawsuit does not give details on when that might have happened, but Deer Creek has been overrun during several floods in the past few years, including going over the flood stage four times in a 10-day stretch last year.