Lake End Parkway cabins to be repaired

Repairs are under way to fix the buckling sections in the floors of the Lake End Parkway cabins as the council approved a resolution where the city agreed to handle distribution of the money to make the repairs.
Work began Monday to repair the Lake End Parkway cabins on the exterior of the cabins, Mayor Frank “Boo” Grizzaffi said. The exterior repairs should be finished this week, he said.
The council authorized signing the Lake End Parkway cabins agreement with contractor LA Contractors and architect Carl Blum. “They got together, really solved the problem with a mediator, didn’t have to go to litigation. We were able to come back with a quick resolution to the problem,” Grizzaffi said at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
The resolution authorized the city to handle the money distribution based on the percentage of responsibility from each party, Grizzaffi said.
According to the settlement listed in the resolution, the city demanded repair or fix of the rippling of the plywood deck underlayment and vinyl tile flooring that occurred after the project was complete in March 2013.
Interior work to repair the buckled floors in the cabins will not begin until January when the city scheduled time for the work to take place, Grizzaffi said. The resolution authorized the city to be the “keeper of the money,” a total of $41,404.80 to be used for repairs, deposited by the architect and contractor, he said.
The dates blocked off for inside repairs of the cabins will be in late January, but the contractor will work around the dates the cabins are scheduled to be rented, Grizzaffi said. The interior repairs are expected to take about a week per cabin. The issues with the floors have not affected the cabins’ ability to be rented out, he said.
Though the resolution states that both LA Contractors and Blum denied liability, they hired architect consultant Richard Weimer to recommend repairs, and both parties offered to make the necessary repairs at no expense to the city.
The resolution also states that LA Contractors and Blum agreed to make the repairs solely to avoid the “cost and uncertainty of litigation and to preserve harmonious commercial relationships.”
The three cabins opened in May and cost about $1 million. The city has received another $1 million in state capital outlay money to build more cabins at Lake End Parkway. A total of 18 cabins are included in the Atchafalaya Basin Master Plan for the parkway. The three cabins that are already built are under a one-year warranty with the contractor and architect who built them, City Recreation and Culture Director Dwayne Barbier said in September.