TREASURE ISLAND — After two and a half years of litigation, the city and the firms involved in designing and building its beach trail have reached a tentative settlement.
The $1.2 million trail, completed in March 2013, developed cracks shortly after it was finished, and after negotiations failed to resolve the problems, the city in 2014 sued Graham Landscape Design of St. Petersburg, Coastal Technology Corp. of Vero Beach and Biltmore Construction.
The settlement will give the city $850,000, which it will use to replace the path within one foot of the wall that runs along the beach side of the walk.
"We believe there was a design defect that was caused by having an extended footer on both sides of the walk that didn't allow for the movement of the concrete as it expanded and contracted," City Manager Reid Silverboard said.
Phil Graham, owner of Graham Landscape Design, could not be reached for comment.
Silverboard said he expects the new walk will cost around $604,000 based on initial estimates. The remainder of the settlement money will go to pay attorney and engineering fees.
"If it is more than that, the city can call off the deal," he said.
Part of the replacement work will include reconstructing 17 beach access points along the trail.
Mayor Robert Minning said he is happy with the outcome of the extended litigation.
"We promised the taxpayers that funded this that they would have a new, uncracked trail and that's what they are getting," he said.
Minning said he is optimistic that the new construction will be crack-free.
"You can look at the north end of trail where there aren't extended footers and there are no cracks," he said.
Minning is hoping construction on the new trail can be started in five or six months. Silverboard predicts it should be completed by February 2018. He doesn't think the city could have done anything differently to avoid the beach walk problems.
"We did everything we needed to do, we hired a competent firm to design it, a well-known construction company to build it and we hired someone to monitor it," Silverboard said. "The city did what it thought it could do to protect the public."
During construction, the beach walk will still be open for use.
"We'll try and do it the way we did it last time and do it in phases," he said. "We'll make accommodations for people to get through the area safely and still have access to the beach."