Legal Woes Mount Over Saratoga Springs Renovation
Renovation plans at Disney World’s Saratoga Springs Resort is being mired in lawsuits by subcontractors according to a recent piece in the Orlando Sentinel.
The lawsuits involve Validus Construction Services and Disney. At least seven subcontractors have sued Validus claiming they are owed $1.58 million in payments. This is according to documents filed with the Orange Circuit Court.
“Subcontractors live on small margins and cash-flow is critical to the life or death of a small company caught between competing giants such as Disney and Validus,” said construction attorney Kevin Kelly, who represents Orlando-based GTM Painting. This is one of the subcontractors that filed suit after an $88,000 bill went unpaid.
As of going to print, Disney is declining to comment on the issue.
Validus is the contractor that is in charge of Disney’s large-scale renovation of the property located adjacent to Disney Springs. The project is expecting to finish this summer. Validus has sued Disney Vacation Club Management for breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation in July. The contractor alleges that Disney refused to alter the project’s timeline and price tag after Validus experienced major delays during construction.
Nicole Wickens, the owner of Validus, accused Disney’s construction team of bullying her and demeaning her. One such example given according to Wickens is that she was sent a text of a hot sauce packet (a reminder that Disney was putting “the heat” on her.
Disney filed a countersuit back in August of 2020 for more than $30,000 saying that Validus had “multiple failures” which included not paying subcontractors on time, failing to meet project deadlines and other issues. According to the Orlando Sentinel in the lawsuit Disney says,“Because of Validus’s failure to perform, Disney was forced to hire another general contractor to fix and complete Validus’s scope of work.”
However, Tucker Byrd, attorney for Validus is saying that Disney “bled the company dry” and that Disney’s failure to pay Validus for work carried out meant massive financial losses as well as the company’s inability to pay subcontractors. Byrd told the Sentinel, “This should have been a glorious project, a crowning achievement in Nicole Wickens’ career. Instead, it turned out to be a disaster that darn near broke the company.”
According to the Sentinel, the ongoing legal fight between Disney & Validus is expect to cost each company more than $500,000 in attorney fees and $200,000 in additional expense should the lawsuit go to trial.
Validus has been sued by seven subcontractors handling drywall, painting, installation of floors and other aspects of the project. One such example was a filing by Professional Construction USA saying it is still waiting to be paid $509,000 for construction labor and materials. Six other subcontractors across Polk, Orange and Seminole counties have also filed their own lawsuits with amounts ranging between $88,000 to $300,000.
The renovation at Saratoga Springs was expected to begin in April of 2019 and be finished by last November. However, problems arose when Validus said that they discovered defects that were in violation of fire and building codes. “This life-safety issue existed at the property for more than 15 years without having previously been corrected by Disney,” Validus alleged in its lawsuit.
Wicken’s had previously told the Sentinel that this violation meant that more work needed to be done to get the buildings up to code which involved removing walls in each of the rooms to make necessary repairs. As a result, Validus argues that Disney should’ve adjusted the timelines accordingly but that Disney refused to do so.
Disney terminated the contraction in April of 2020.
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