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The project to develop and construct an 840,000-square-foot mall at the Ramestein Air Base in Germany continues to be massively over budget and behind schedule, officials told lawmakers on Wednesday.

The Kaiserslautern Military Community Center, under construction since late 2003, is designed to have an eight-story, 350-room hotel, a movie theater with stadium seating, and large shopping and restaurant areas. The project, also known as K-town, was scheduled to open by 2006, but the Government Accountability Office reported Wednesday that will not likely happen until 2009. GAO also estimated the project will cost well over $200 million, more than $80 million over budget.

Even then, the GAO report stated, "it will likely take years before all issues related to this project, including litigation and potential construction quality problems, are resolved."

A year ago, GAO and Air Force officials testified before the committee that the project -- the Defense Department's single largest building project -- was struggling because of poor construction and contract mismanagement. GAO identified problems with the roof and kitchen exhaust ducts, which were deemed potentially dangerous. This year, GAO also detected long cracks in the building's concrete foundation.

Maj. Gen. Mark Rogers, vice commander of the Air Force in Europe, told the committee that the service had ramped up its oversight of the project, partly through the creation of a resident director's office to centralize KMCC management. The office had 29 employees, a significant increase from the eight oversight personnel initially assigned to the project. While noting these improvements, Rogers also conceded that the facility remained incomplete and the project further delayed.

The Air Force "concluded that that regardless of our oversight, the project could not progress without significant changes in LBB-KL's performance." Landesbetrieb Liegenschafts-und Baubetreuung -- Kaiserslautern is the German state entity responsible for managing and executing KMCC construction under a U.S.-German agreement.

Lawmakers did say, however, that the Air Force must do a better, more transparent job of estimating the costs of the project. GAO reported that the service did not track tens of millions of dollars in costs related to KMCC, including design, personnel, furniture and equipment expenses, and foreign currency fluctuation.

The cost of repairing shoddy construction also was not included in Air Force estimates, the report showed.

While construction and development costs have been significant on their own, project delays have cost the government a large amount of money. For example, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service estimated that it was losing $500,000 in profit each month KMCC's exchange facility was not open. The Air Force estimated that the government was paying an additional $90,000 in personnel travel for each month the hotel portion of the complex was still under construction.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the similarity between the 2007 and 2008 hearings made the testimony "sound like the movie Groundhog Day," calling it evidence of "pervasive dysfunction in federal contracting."

COMMENTS

• GAO is Government Accounting Office, not "Acountability." To find a mistake like this in what is purporting to be an academic level research project is not a good thing. AER Posted September 20, 2008 11:52 AM
• I thought this section was for use to comment on the Ramstein article, but after reading all the nonsense, I’m sorry that I wasted my time. But rather then let the other comments stand, I’d like to clarify some points…the basic infrastructure at Ramstein AB is over 50 years old. The base is being built-up to assume the role of a dozen Cold War-era bases that have been closed, as well as serve as a USAFE and NATO Air HQ. The US is lucky to have access to this base in a friendly secure place in Europe because it provides a crucial stopover point for missions going to Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The primary use for the 350-room ‘hotel’ is to support those deploying to warzones. The ‘Mall’ is essentially an oversized Base Exchange to provide the Americans serving their country overseas with access to American products and services at American prices. The new facilities ‘are’ being built by the private sector with DoD MILCON funds. The problem is that the (German) private sector failed to deliver and the AF wasn’t able to, or failed to provide sufficient oversight. Finally, I’d like to add that those who’ve never served a day in uniform really have no understanding of the hardships of military life. Civil Service NSPS is a walk-in-the-park compared to the military promotion system. I have worked under both. Failure to succeed or maintain standards in the military leads directly to unemployment. Perhaps we should put an up-or-out requirement into NSPS and see what happens? Bottom line, the GIs are putting their life on the line for us every day. When mistakes are made, they pay the price. They all deserve our utmost respect and admiration--PERIOD! One Who Was There Posted July 2, 2008 10:15 AM
• There are many, many problems with this project. As already alluded to, there was a lot of pressure from the top in USAFE to get this mall/hotel completed as quickly as possible. Work began even before the designs were completed. As per the Status of Forces Agreement, LLB had the responsibility for managing the dozens of sub-contractors, but I think it was overwhelmed by the size and scale of the project. Then one of the larger sub-contractors went bankrupt forcing the rest (per German law) to pick up the slack. In hindsight, it would have been better if one or two experienced big-city German firms had been chosen to build this whole thing, rather than being piecemealed out to small local firms in an effort to support the regional economy. The primary reason for the lack of AF oversight--I think--was caused by the language barrier. Most construction documents never get translated into English. One positive point for US taxpayers, if there is one, is that a portion of this mess was funded by the Germans as part of the return of Rhein-Main AB. One Who Was There Posted July 1, 2008 10:32 AM