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Globe Atlas Construction Corp., the general contractor hired by the city of Stamford for the $3.7 million Ferguson Library project, is embroiled in legal disputes over work it has performed, the Business Journal has learned.
A subcontractor on the library project has led suit against Globe Atlas, seeking nearly $500,000 it claims is owed for initial excavation work.
In addition, nearly $3 million in unpaid judgments are pending against entities related to Globe. The companies also face multimillion-dollar legal claims for allegedly defective work on several public projects in Long Island and New York City.
Most of the work involves Globe's principal, Joseph Silveri, a.k.a. J.J. Silveri, and a defunct company he owned, Elite Associates Inc. of Syosset, N.Y.
Phone calls to Silveri's Armonk, N.Y., office were not returned.
Trials involving the two largest jobs -- the Nassau County courthouse and the Longwood-High School -- have been set in New York.
Globe Atlas recently bid on additional area municipal jobs, including the $4.9 million T. Wells School project in Brewster, N.Y., (awarded to another contractor), and has a pending bid for the Convent of Sacred Heart School in Greenwich.
A trial began last week in Nassau County Supreme Court involving 10 lawsuits stemming from the $11.03 million construction of the Nassau County District Courthouse in Hempstead, N.Y., from 1987 to 1988. As part of the dispute, the Nassau County Department of Public Works is suing Elite Associates for $2.79 million. The suit names as second-party defendants Silveri and Elite vice president Frank Arcuri. (Arcuri apparently is not affiliated with Globe Atlas.)
Ludwig C. Hasl, commissioner of the Nassau Public Works Department, and Franklin V. Reda, the department's engineer, claim defective construction work delayed the courthouse opening from November 1986 to March 1988. They allege that Elite's failure to enclose the building during construction resulted in "extensive" weather damage to installed work that subsequently had to be replaced. They also claim that Elite failed to coordinate subcontractors' work and pay them, resulting in 16 subcontractors filing mechanic's liens against the project, and that Elite abandoned the project midway through construction.
Another trial is scheduled this summer in Suffolk County Supreme Court in a separate dispute involving the $12.9 million construction of a high school in...