Engineering firm working on North Santa Barbara County jail going out of business
SANTA MARIA, Calif. - The engineering firm working on the North Santa Barbara County jail is going out of business.
For the past month, Santa Barbara County has been in the process of finding a new construction firm to take over. Project leaders say, despite changes, construction is still expected to be completed by December 2019.
This week, the Board of Supervisors voted to have one of the contractors already working on the project expand its role. Kitchell CEM Inc. has been working on the project since 2013 in a construction management role. The business is now set to provide the necessary architectural and engineering service roles being vacated by Rosser International Inc.
"So right now we don't see any effect on the schedule. But that'll be determined once we get through this process here," said project leader John Green. "It took us about a month to replace the architect. In the interim, we had the county architect filling that role, which was helpful to kind of minimize impacts."
The jail is 90 percent complete. The project costs $111 million. Green doesn't expect the changes to pose a significant impact on the budget.
"It does have an impact to the architectural services side, but that'll be offset by the moneys that we haven't paid Rosser to finish the project," he said.
The County has also filed a civil lawsuit in Superior Court against Rosser International Inc. for breach of contract.
The Northern Branch Jail project has been planned for more than 20 years, with the goals of reducing jail crowding, limiting the continued early release of persons convicted of crimes, and replacing aging existing jail facilities.
The project is located on a portion of a larger 50-acre County-owned parcel at the corner of Betteravia and Black roads, near Santa Maria.
