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Convention Center Officials: There Was No Warning for $100-Mil Cost Overruns

BOSTON-Despite recent reports, Massachusetts Convention Center Authority officials insist that there is no way they could have known about the center's budget problems any earlier. The MCCA board is looking at how to cut costs from the $750 million project.

By Naomi Grossman | Updated on February 05, 2001

BOSTON-Despite recent reports that the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority was warned as far back as November of 1999 that the $750 million convention center project here in South Boston was over budget, MCCA officials insist that there was no way they could have known about the estimated $100 million in possible cost overruns.

“In November of 1999 we only had schematics,” Dean Stratouly, a powerful local developer who heads the MCCA board, tells GlobeSt.com. “At that point we were just estimating and that is so unreliable.”

Reportedly, Tishman Construction Corp., which is under contract with the MCCA, gave the MCCA a clear estimate then that demonstrated that costs were rising very quickly. According to Andy Antrobus, spokesperson for the MCCA, even if Tishman had provided project manager Walter Upton with an estimate back in November of 1999, it wouldn’t have been taken too seriously at that point. According to Stratouly, the first three bids for the center came in under budget.

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