St. Albert residents are worried that the work being done by a now bankrupted construction company won’t be completed.
Edmonton-based Devlin Construction, which has taken several contracts in St. Albert over the years, was declared bankrupt last month. The company, which was founded in 2003, has since taken down its website, however, its business line continues to be operational.
This spring, Devlin was in the middle of completing work for the Grandin West Service Road Reconstruction, which included laying topsoil and sod as well as resurfacing the asphalt in the area and completing the bus stop access and crossings at Glen Meadow Road in front of 106 Grandin Road.
Carolyn Vickers, who lives in Sturgeon Heights, is familiar with Devlin’s work as the company was in the middle of replacing the sidewalk last year, which required them to take out a portion of her lawn. When she returned home from vacation, she found the new sod hadn’t been watered and she was left with dry and brown grass.
Now that Devlin has declared bankruptcy, she said she’s worried nothing will be done to fix her lawn.
“We’re putting a deck on and if one of our contractors screwed up somebody’s property and they went bankrupt ... we would be responsible for our contractor,” she said. “The city should be responsible and that should be addressed and the priority should be to get these lawns fixed this year.”
Christina Timleck, who lives in Deer Ridge, had a similar problem with Devlin involving work done on her sidewalk and driveway. She said half of her driveway was torn up as well as part of her lawn in 2016. After a late start because Devlin was occupied with the Fort McMurray wildfires, the project took roughly four months but Timleck said the quality of the work wasn’t great.
“I understand there are lulls in the process,” she said. “Maybe they were waiting for Telus to tell them something or different trades to come in to do something. There was a lot of lulls in the whole process where work wasn’t being done. The guys themselves were nice and courteous. The work was not good. We have a lot of pitting in our sidewalks. Somebody cut the fibre optic line and nobody really even noticed it until we had an issue.”
Lacombe Park resident Rose Robinson said Devlin replaced the main sidewalk and part of the path walkway in 2016 but did a “terrible” job with her lawn.
“The sidewalk is fine,” she said. “When they did the replacement of the grass, they didn’t level the ground. The grass they put in was horrible. More weeds than grass. It’s still dead.”
Jay Mason, St. Albert’s operations manager for infrastructure, roads and sidewalks, told the Gazette on Thursday Devlin had several projects on the go, primarily the 2017-18 sidewalks program. He confirmed the city isn’t pursuing any legal action against the company because of the performance bond that’s in place, which includes a surety with the company for each project.
“Once the contract is cancelled, we follow the terms of contract and notify their surety company,” he said. “Typically on construction projects, if you have to bring in a new contractor to complete work there’s additional costs for a new contractor to come in above and beyond the balance of the scope of work. The surety is in place in case that ever happens. The surety covers the difference.”
He explained when a company has a contract with the city, the company is paid up to where they are on the project and what has been completed.
Mason added the process is underway to work with the surety company, but the city doesn't have to look for a new contractor since the surety company will be the one to ensure the projects are finished. He said he hopes there won’t be any delays to completing the projects this construction season.
