Construction giant files bankruptcy, plans to move Pleasantons Dillingham will shrink amid public works legal morass Founded in the 1880s to build a railroad. BibMe Free Bibliography Citation Maker MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard. One officer sexually abused a 19yearold in his patrol car. Another officer challenged a handcuffed man to fight for a chance to be released. And another officer. Get the latest breaking news across the U. S. on ABCNews. com. Construction giant files bankruptcy, plans to move Pleasantons Dillingham will shrink amid public works legal morass. Pleasantons Dillingham Construction, which dredged the main channel into Pearl Harbor and helped repair the Bay Bridge after the Loma Prieta earthquake, has filed for Chapter 1. Florida and emerge as a much smaller entity. Founded in the 1. Oahu, Dillingham became a leading engineering and construction firm, building dams, airfields, high rise offices, hotels and embassies around the world including San Franciscos Embarcadero One, the Hyatt at Union Square and the Wells Fargo Building. But in the past decade, Dillingham became embroiled in several nasty disputes with government customers notably Los Angeles and San Francisco in which the company said it was owed millions, while the cities or counties alleged overbilling, substandard construction and misrepresentation of minority involvement. Its not uncommon with public agencies where the contractor like Dillingham will file a request for extra payment because of changes or some delays they feel were caused by the owner agency, said Dillingham CEO Donald Sundgren. In todays world, the owner agency then files charges against the contractor as a defense mechanism over any number of things minorities, false claims. Its an insidious, expensive and litigious process. San Francisco Deputy City Attorney David Norman saw it differently. They bid on such a short margin that if anything goes wrong in bidding or the performance of the work, theyre destined to lose money, so they need to recover it one way or another, he said. Pdf To Text Ware Cnet. Dillingham is suing San Francisco for payment of cost overruns in constructing the Tenderloin School and a building at San Francisco International Airport. The city is suing Dillingham for allegedly lying about minority partnerships in those projects. Fight Games Fla Files' title='Fight Games Fla Files' />The case is scheduled for trial June 1. It seems like every job they had in Northern California in the past couple of years ended up in a legal action, Norman said. In 2. 00. 0, an African American construction worker won a 4. Dillingham after a hangmans noose with a life size effigy of an African American man was hung on a crane at his SFO work site. Dillingham said that was an isolated incident derived from the acts of an individual dispatched to the Dillingham job site from the union hall. In Los Angeles, the company had bitter disputes over major projects building the subway, an emergency operations center and a wastewater treatment plant. A month before trial was set to begin, Dillingham settled a suit alleging it overbilled for the countys Emergency Operations Center in East Los Angeles. Without admitting wrongdoing, Dillingham accepted a 2. Sundgren said that was fine by him. Los Angeles has been nothing but a graveyard for us, he said. Dillingham is suing the city of Los Angeles for 6. Hyperion Wastewater Treatment plant, saying the city botched plans for the project and then expected the builder to swallow the cost. A Dillingham joint venture, Parsons Dillingham, is battling with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority over alleged overbilling on the Metro Rail subway project. Sundgren said the company took on huge debts to finance the disputed projects. Although Dillingham had 2. Bay Area, according to Chronicle rankings it failed to turn a profit in the past two years, he said. The way we finance those projects was to borrow the money. We have never recovered that money to date, so we got very deeply in debt, Sundgren said. We got to a debt level that was untenable. It was too difficult for us to carry the debt burden further. The two largest creditors are GMAC and Firemans Fund, according to bankruptcy papers filed by Dillingham and its 1. Jan. 2. 8 in Oakland. Sundgren joined Dillingham in 1. Watkins Engineers and Constructors in Tallahassee, Fla., where he had been CEO for 1. After Dillingham emerges from bankruptcy protection in four to six months, it will take the Watkins name and be headquartered in Tallahassee, Sundgren said by phone from the Florida capital. The reorganized firm will have about 4. Dillinghams peak of 1,5. Watkins will focus on process industrial work smokestack industries like pulp and paper, power, chemicals, primarily in the Southeast, he said. Dillinghams rise and fall. Dillingham Corp. suffered growing pains through the decades before filing for Chapter 1. Benjamin Franklin Dillingham, a mate on the Cape Cod whaler Whistler, is stranded on the Hawaiian islands with a broken leg after falling from a horse. After losing his savings in a failed banana export venture, Dillingham works as a clerk for H. Dimind Sons, hardware merchants. Dillingham buys H. Dimind Sons. Granted a royal franchise by King Kalakaua, Dillinghams son, Walter, organizes a group of investors into the Oahu Railway and Land Co. After Benjamin Dillingham suffers a nervous breakdown, his son establishes the Hawaiian Dredging and Construction Co. Dillinghams companies diversify. Of Fake Anti Spyware Programs. Projects include Pearl Harbor dry docks 1. Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills 1. Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles 1. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Dillingham joins a consortium to build air bases on islands captured from the Japanese. Download Websense Triton here. Lowell Dillingham, Walters son, gradually assumes control of the company, overseeing the merger of Hawaiian Dredging and the Oahu Railway in 1. Dillingham Corp. and transforming the family business into a public company. Wins contract to build the 4. Wells Fargo building at Post and Stockton streets in San Francisco. Constructs Hawaiis Ala Moana Shopping Center, the largest in the world at that time. Completes the Hyatt hotel on Union Square, San Francisco. Builds the New Melones Dam in Sierra Nevada. The Golden Gate Bridge District files suit in San Francisco Superior Court against the joint venture of DillinghamTokola on the bridge deck replacement project. The suit seeks damages of 8 million for allegedly defective paint on the new deck and sidewalk sections. Dillingham Construction Corp., the large construction arm of Dillingham Corp. U. S. subsidiary of the Japanese Shimizu Construction Corp. Ltd. 1. 98. 8 Dillingham suffers record losses stemming from the industrywide slump and money losing projects. Moves its headquarters from San Francisco to Pleasanton. Helps repair the Bay Bridge after Loma Prieta earthquake. J. Martin Gerlinger, a former finance manager, files a whistle blower lawsuit claiming that Parsons Dillingham overcharged the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority by 2. Dillingham files a 6. Los Angeles claiming the city concealed problems with plans for the Hyperion Wastewater Treatment plant and failed to pay the company for costs it incurred in making changes. Dillingham Construction Inc. Los Angeles County for 2. Emergency Operations Center in East Los Angeles. Source Chronicle research.