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URS Corp. fighting stigma from Crosstown fiasco

By STEVE HUETTEL
Published April 24, 2006

Is engineering giant URS Corp. getting a black eye in the way it's handling a dispute over fixing the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway?

A section of the new 6-mile overhead roadway collapsed in April 2004 when a support column sank. The Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority sued URS, the project's general engineering consultant, for $120-million in October after settlement talks broke down.

Subsequent mediation hasn't gone smoothly. "Why don't they just step up to the plate and settle?" said authority spokeswoman Beth Leytham. "They're the 800-pound gorilla . . . and figure, "We're just going to beat up on this little expressway authority.' "

Last week, Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms took a shot at URS, warning Tampa Port Authority officials to scrutinize any URS contracts.

"I've seen the way they behaved and attempted to shirk their responsibility," she said. "I think other agencies should watch carefully." Port officials said they haven't had problems with URS but will review liability and insurance protections in their contracts.

URS says conflicts with the expressway authority are resolved and the company is working to move the mediation forward. The battle hasn't hurt the company's bidding on local government projects, says Tom Logan, a URS vice president who oversees its Florida offices.

"At no time when we lost a project has anyone told us it's because of how (we) dealt with an unrelated party," he says.

[Last modified April 24, 2006, 01:40:15]