Man sues Met Council over property damage next to Southwest Light Rail construction
MINNEAPOLIS -- A man is suing the Met Council and its contractors for property damage he alleges stemmed from part of the Southwest Light Rail's construction just steps away from his building.
Steven Savitt is seeking more than $750,000 in compensation from the Met Council and Luna Construction and C.S. McCrossan Construction, which are working together on the extension of the Metro Green Line from Minneapolis to Eden Prairie.
He owns a 2,250 square foot warehouse in the Kenilworth Corridor, where construction includes underground tunnels for the transit line that's a driver for the project's increasing costs. Parts of the walls are separated, allowing sunlight to beam through the windowless building. There are also fractures in the floor.
"My feeling is if I have a neighbor that does 100% of the damage, they should be responsible for 100% of the costs," Savitt said. "We walk in there gingerly just to make sure we don't initiate a collapse of the building."
In his lawsuit, Savitt alleges negligence, arguing that the regional planning agency and the construction companies knew the risks associated with construction in that area, but failed to take action to protect his property from damage.
The Met Council said it does not comment on pending litigation. A spokeswoman in an email highlighted the process for reporting potential damage from light rail construction. The attorney representing the construction companies named in the lawsuit did not respond to requests for comment about the lawsuit.
Savitt said he first noticed damage in early 2019 and his tenant who rented the property for business left in early 2020 because it wasn't safe anymore. He said the defendants' insurance company offered to cover only 15% of the estimated costs to tear down the warehouse and build a new one.
"All I'm looking for is just the cost to replace the building so I get back to where I was," Savitt said. "The people who have estimated the cost of repair tell me it can't really be repaired, it has to be completely scraped off or removed and rebuilt from scratch."
Nearby, a condo building is also damaged. The Met Council hired an engineering firm that found that construction had little to do with damage, according to the Star Tribune, and that there were structural issues with the design of the towers. But some who lived there were skeptical of the assessment.
Chair of the Met Council Charlie Zelle recently told lawmakers that residents and the Met Council entered mediation.
"We entered into mediation to have a thoughtful process of -- knowing we simply can't ignore some of their concerns and seeing what we could find for solutions to keep the project moving," he said during a hearing on Sept. 9.
The Office of the Legislative Auditor earlier this month released its special review of the troubled project, the largest in state history. It provided an accounting of key parts of the construction timeline and highlighted drivers of increased costs, which have doubled.
A more extensive evaluation of the Met Council's decisions related to the transit line will be released early next year.
