Baca Street tenants say Railyard project is making life difficult

After more than eight months of construction delays and two weeks with a broken sewer line, Kristin Lora has had just about all she can take of the construction work on Baca Street.

The work is part of the city’s Railyard redevelopment project, and Lora and others who work at 925 Baca St. say clients have had trouble finding their businesses, construction crews sometimes make access difficult, and everyone has had to use a portable toilet since the sewer line broke.

“I’ve kind of lost my patience with all of this,” said Lora, an artist who has a studio in the building.

Richard Czoski, executive director of The Santa Fe Railyard Community Corp., said most of Lora’s complaints are founded, except the one about the sewer line.

A contractor investigated the line Wednesday and discovered the problem had nothing to do with the construction work, Czoski said.

But he acknowledged the project was supposed to be complete Dec. 27, 2006, and tenants have experienced some access problems.

Czoski said a main reason for the delays has been the weather. This winter’s huge snow storm in January halted work for months, and then an early monsoon season soaked the ground, he said. The contractor had to wait for it to dry.

Another reason for the delays was the time it took to coordinate installation of the utilities, he said. The Railyard Corp. had to negotiate special agreements with the city before the utilities could be installed, he said, and that took months.

“I wish that construction was a more finite science than it is,” Czoski said.

Some tenants also asked for small design changes, he said, causing further delays.

The Railyard Corp. hopes to have the Baca Street construction done in about 30 days, Czoski said. The part of the project on Paseo de Peralta should be done in March or April, he said.

Czoski noted the Railyard Corp. has no incentive to drag out the construction process because the corporation’s rents go up when the construction is over. The leases gave no specific date for when the construction would be completed, he said.

Also, the contractors put up signs to help people find the businesses, Czoski said.

In the meantime, however, other tenants say they wish the construction would end.

Spencer Martin, owner of Detalles, a company that makes concrete fixtures for homes, said he considers himself lucky because he only has two or three clients meet him at the office each week. Otherwise the construction would make doing business much more difficult, he said.

Martin also said he wouldn’t want to direct clients to the portable toilet if someone wanted to use the bathroom. “It wasn’t too, too bad until the sewer line broke,” he said.

On a positive note, the construction crews have always been good about getting out of the way when he needed to leave, Martin said.

Frank Succardi, owner of Cybertech, a computer service company, said not only have his clients had trouble finding his business, but his service technicians have been delayed getting to service calls because construction crews have blocked the way out.

The signs didn’t always work because construction crews would change the route to the businesses on a daily basis, Succardi said.

Succardi said the road was impassable for a month last winter, and he had to work from his home. Then someone hit his car, and he was able to get a four-wheel-drive vehicle to make it to the office, he said.

As for the portable toilet, he said, “I’m glad it’s here, but it’s pretty gross.”

Contact Wendy Brown at wbrown@sfnewmexican.com.