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COLUMBUS, Ga. — The city’s plans to demolish the Government Center and replace it with a new judicial building lacks a dedicated professional project manager, according to recent dialogue during the city council meeting held on July 25.

The project currently has a budget of $225 million, which recently increased to exceed its originally-projected costs by 29%.

The project is funded entirely by taxpayer funds through the city’s SPLOST.

Currently, the colossally-expensive and intricate design project is being oversaught by CCG’s Director of Inspections and Codes, Ryan Pruett.

Pruett, according to several city councilors, should be doing his own job of directing the city’s inspections and codes department; the city shouldn’t be irresponsibly trying to skate by leaving Pruett no choice but to treat the $225 million project as a side hustle.

The intricate task of managing the development of the city's new $225 million judicial center, according to city councilors and common sense, should be left to a designated professional project manager whose sole job is to properly direct the project and ensure corners aren’t being cut.

It is unclear why such a monumental project funded by hundreds of millions in specially-raised taxpayer funds was not assigned a professional project manager from the start, though it does match the track record of both CCG’s approach to new building construction and fiscal management.

Public records show that no fewer than three mayoral administrations were aware of the old Government Center’s willful neglect over the course of decades, though each continued the decades-long public lie of the building simply being ‘old.’ We have previously exposed that lie in intricate detail in our January 2023 article on the subject. Corner-cutting and a failed prioritization of resources led to all three administrations focusing on ‘expansion’ instead of maintaining what they already had.

The new judicial center’s development appears to  now be suffering from the same sort of neglectful management from the get-go, with its colossal price tag recently expanding from the original $175 million cost to a newly-figured $225 million. 

That’s a 29% increase in the project — nearly one third — which is quite the managerial oversight after already proposing, voting on, collecting, and dedicating taxpayer money for it.

According to a recent interview by WRBL with Mayor Skip Henderson, the plan for the very footprint of the building itself has now changed in an effort to reduce costs. The existing structures known as the ‘wings,’ which are the ground floor buildings that flank the existing tower’s entrance, will not be demolished but instead reworked into the new building in an effort to ‘save costs.’ 

“So, we had to kind of go back and look at a more economical way to still accomplish the goal,” Henderson said in his WRBL interview. “So, we’re likely to save the wings as opposed to demolishing them and starting from the ground up and putting a taller building out there. So, we’ll use those. We’ll put more windows in there. It’ll fit with the architectural styles around that area, including the RiverCenter and the Springer.”

The 29% increase in the project’s costs, the massive sudden changes to the grand architectural plan, and the lack of having a designated project manager all seem to suggest gross mismanagement of the city’s approach to the $225 million taxpayer-funded project. 

Skating by with the city’s inspections director treating a $225 million project like a side hustle while simultaneously altering the project’s core architectural approach — all while taxpayers’ dollars are funding it — doesn’t exactly scream ‘competent management.’

It screams malfeasance.

Perhaps city officials should very carefully consider that. It might be ideal to not have the city’s track record of constructional negligence continue to repeat itself. 

Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.

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