Waterfront hotel’s uneven flooring at heart of court battle
Cape Town - Arbitration will continue between the V&A Waterfront and structural engineers, GR Sutherland & Associates for remedial work to be done at the Silo Hotel estimated at R30.6 million.
The Western Cape High Court recently dismissed the application by the engineers who were contracted in 2014 to modify and adapt an old grain silo in the V&A Waterfront section of the Cape Town harbour.
The undertaking involved the conversion of the silo into a building that would, among other things, accommodate a luxury boutique hotel.
It has since been found that part of the work done to the Silo building required the floor levels in the section of the structure that houses the boutique hotel, to be raised above the level of the solid floor slabs, by means of screeding.
This had however been done improperly and resulted in the floors of the hotel becoming uneven.
In her judgement, Judge Ashley Binns-Ward said: “Remedial work at an alleged cost of approximately R6 million has been carried out. The remedial work will, however, apparently provide only a temporary solution and it is therefore currently envisaged that further work, expected to cost V&A approximately R30,6 million in present value (including losses associated with the building being out of commission during the execution of the work), will be required in the future to give a long-lasting result. The hotel had to close its business for five months while the remedial work to provide a temporary solution was carried out.
“The causes of the problem were investigated by an engineer and architect, one Professor Vernon Collis, who furnished three reports on the matter.
Collis opined that the consultants, as well as the sixth and seventh respondents, were each, in the several respects identified in his reports, at fault in respect of the unsatisfactory work.
As mentioned, V&A gave notice to each of the parties with which it had an arbitration agreement (including WBHO (Pty) Ltd) of its intention to proceed against them.
“It also issued an invitation to those parties to agree to proceedings in which the issues could be addressed and determined on a consolidated basis as between everyone involved.
Sutherland declined the invitation. V&A has reportedly concluded a settlement with the building contractor.
Thereafter, as also mentioned earlier, V&A proceeded only against Sutherland, holding in abeyance for the time being any claims it might also be able to advance against any of the other parties,” said Binns-Ward.
V&A Waterfront spokesperson Donald Kau, said: “Regards the ruling, the V&A instituted arbitration proceedings against GR Sutherland and Associates (Sutherlands) to determine liability. Sutherlands brought an application of the Arbitration Act to have the arbitration moved to the high court.
“The Cape High Court has now dismissed Sutherland’s application and the matter continues in arbitration.”
GR Sutherland & Associates declined to comment.
Cape Times