About two months after the reconstruction of the road was slated to be complete, Port Huron City Manager James Freed held an afternoon press conference Friday, December 5 on Port Huron’s Lapeer Avenue to announce contractual action against the contractors, Boddy Construction, for what Freed described as “deeply disappointing” project progress.
The Lapeer Avenue reconstruction project, which was approved this past spring and costs a total of $2.9 million, is being handled by Michigan’s Department of Transportation. Though MDOT handles the contract, Freed made it clear at his press conference last Friday that he does not hold the state agency responsible.
In a letter to Port Huron’s mayor and city council, Freed noted that the project’s engineers of record, ROWE, informed him that “they have never witnessed performance issues of this magnitude from a contractor.” He said that it is also important to note that MDOT requires the award to be made to the lowest bidder, and at the time of bidding, the city did not have sufficient grounds to disqualify Boddy Construction.
However, due to what Freed describes as “Boddy Construction’s inability to effectively manage its subcontractors, persistent deficiencies in project oversight, and what increasingly appears to be systemic incompetence,” the project, which was expected to finish by October 3, 2025, is now expected to extend into spring of 2026. The project has seen multiple delays, with the work originally expected to start on June 9, 2025, only to be delayed by two weeks to June 23. Concrete work slated to begin mid-August has only been halfway completed, according to Freed.
In accordance with the city’s contract for the project, the city of Port Huron will be pursuing liquidated damages at a rate of $1,005 a day for every day the road remains unfinished. With the city backtiming the damages to the promised October 3 project end date, damages currently stand at over $84,000, with Freed expecting damages to be over $100,000 by the time work is actually completed.
Freed also said that the city’s administration, as overseen by him, will not be seeking out any contracts with Boddy Construction in the future, and urged city leadership to not entertain any contracts from the company going forward.
