AIMD-99-258 District of Columbia: Status of the New Convention Center Project

District of Columbia: Status of Construction of the Convention Center

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided a status report on the construction of the new Washington Convention Center, focusing on: (1) the status of the project; (2) changes in the Washington Convention Center Authority's (WCCA) estimated project costs and financing plan since GAO's last report; and (3) actual expenditures and collection of dedicated taxes. GAO noted that: (1) in March 1999, work started on slurry wall construction, site excavation, and removal of contaminated soil; (2) based on information provided by WCCA officials as of June 1999, total estimated project costs decreased $55 million from $846 million to $791 million; (3) this decrease was due to reduced financing-related costs, which resulted primarily from the purchase of a surety bond covering debt servicing instead of funding the initially planned for Debt Service Reserve Fund; (4) WCCA estimated the total construction cost of the project at $714 million--$6.3 million, or less than 1 percent, more than the June 1998 estimate; (5) the $6.3 million increases to $24 million the estimated value of equipment that WCCA anticipates being provided by vendors at no initial cost to WCCA; (6) however, WCCA remains at risk for the cost of the equipment until contracts are executed with vendors; (7) within the $714 million construction cost estimate, WCCA made a number of changes, increasing the estimated cost of some project components and decreasing others to reflect more current data; (8) proceeds from the September 1998 bond sale covered about 66 percent of the $791 million June 1999 project cost estimate; (9) WCCA's financing plan covered the remaining cost through dedicated taxes over the 4-year construction period, anticipated interest earnings, anticipated federal grants, and reliance on vendors to provide without cost, equipment that WCCA estimates would cost $24 million--an amount for which WCCA is at risk until such time that there are executed contracts to cover these arrangements; (10) dedicated tax collections for the first 10 months of fiscal year 1999 were $42.2 million--a little higher than the amount assumed in the bond offering documents prorated for the same period; (11) in addition to the amounts already collected, WCCA may receive some portion of amounts in the lockbox exceptions account; (12) these amounts cannot be determined until all collections held in the lockbox exceptions account have been appropriately allocated by the District of Columbia and appropriate amounts transferred to WCCA; and (13) WCCA's share of interest earnings on amounts in the exceptions account cannot be determined until the District determines the appropriate allocation.

AIMD/OCE-98-238 District of Columbia: Status of the New Convention Center Project