KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — The PowerPoint demonstration detailing the mistakes made on the Kaiserslautern Military Community Center began with a photo meant to be funny.

It showed two boats tied to a pier. The yacht was named “Change Order,” while the dinghy behind it was dubbed “Original Contract.”

Anyone who has dealt with unscrupulous contractors gets the joke.

But the picture flashed to Air Force engineers at the workshop last August helped illustrate something more serious: the big reason why Air Force officials believe Ramstein Air Base’s mall-hotel complex has gone embarrassingly wrong.

An Air Force task force found the center to be a case study on how not to do a large military construction project. Slides from the Aug. 21 presentation in San Antonio offered a critical assessment of the project — and a sobering outlook of its uncertain future.

The task force found poor management, miscommunication, and lack of oversight to be the project’s main problems. The internal investigation mirrors what U.S. congressional investigators and Air Force auditors reported earlier this year. Neither the Air Force nor German state government construction officials escaped blame in the briefing.

Gen. Tom Hobbins, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe at the time, formed the group from various agencies and Air Force departments to find out how things got so out of control and what could be done to get the project back on track.

But when asked about the task force’s presentation, USAFE spokeswoman Lt. Col. Angela Billings said on Tuesday much has changed since then, and the findings “do not represent the complete picture.” She would not provide any examples of inaccuracies.

“After three additional months of steady state analysis, we no longer draw the same conclusions as presented here,” Billings said. “The task force has made further determinations that will be forthcoming at a later date.”

When that report is finished, the results will be released to the public, she added.

The 844,000-square-foot mall and hotel at Ramstein is two years behind its initial completion date and continues to be a sensitive topic among both American and German officials.

More than five months after a congressional hearing looking into the project, the Air Force and German state construction agency officials do not know when either the hotel or mall will be finished. The project is the subject of criminal investigations by both Air Force and German officials looking into fraud allegations. Although no charges have been filed, nearly two dozen people are under investigation.

The Air Force forecast that the facility would cost less than the $175.8 million allocated to the project, despite the myriad of issues. The latest estimates put the price tag around $161 million, which is being paid mostly by the Army and Air Force Exchange Service. The $175.8 million figure released previously was inaccurate, Billings said.

The Air Force and Landesbetrieb Liegenschaft- und Baubetreuunng, LBB, have refused to allow top officials or members of the task force to discuss the project or the briefing on the record. The Air Force also has denied repeated requests to tour and take photographs of the inside of the facility, giving no official explanation.

The Aug. 21 PowerPoint presentation once available on the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment Web site is no longer available online. It disappeared shortly after Stars and Stripes began asking for more information about it.

Mike Hawkins, a center spokesman, said Col. Sal Nodjminian gave the presentation — called “Lessons Learned — Ramstein KMCC and Open Discussion” — at the Air Force Center’s semi-annual conference.

The investigation found many of the problems “unavoidable … none unforeseeable,” according to one slide. Problems such as vandalism to the hotel, severe weather, bankruptcy of the roof contractor and currency fluctuations contributed to the headaches.

But the task force reported they were “not the root causes.”

The lack of a general contractor and “weak” management by LBB were among the chief reasons. The agency had no experience on a project of this size and relied on a design and construction management company that was later fired.

The task force found that the Air Force also made its share of mistakes. USAFE did not demand a general contractor and “adhered to an unrealistic schedule.” The command also did not assess the risks nor follow military construction guidelines.

A timeline used in one of the slides noted how the Air Force and LBB decided in May 2003 to put the project on the “fast track” so that it would be finished by December 2005. That is the same time Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt closed and there became a greater need for a 350-room hotel to accommodate the additional passengers passing through Ramstein.

The presentation also mentions that there was a objection to the facility’s “green roof” concept as early as 2003. The report does not say who made the objection or why. But the roof has been one of the projects biggest disasters.

The environmentally friendly roof was designed to have grass on top to absorb rainwater, but Air Force engineers noticed the roof leaked in 2006, and the contractor responsible is now bankrupt and unable to fix it.

In a statement, LBB said less than 50 percent of the roof will need to be fixed but neither the Air Force nor the state agency could provide an estimated cost.

USAFE has put much of the responsibility of the problems on LBB. Under German law going back to 1975, the state agency manages construction projects for foreign militaries.

Command officials have blamed the most current delays on a backlog of change orders processed by LBB but not approved by the Air Force. Since the Air Force has not approved the change orders, it has withheld funding. That has caused most of the private contractors to walk off the job.

When asked about the status of the change orders and how many there are now, the Air Force said “hundreds” have been processed, but an exact figure could not be given.

LBB said an average of only 20 workers were on the site in November. The German government has agreed to provide interim financing to get the workers back on site and kick the project back into gear.

A number of changes have been made in the past three months to help move the construction forward, Billings said. They include LBB providing weekly summaries on changes, new leadership and training classes to familiarize Air Force personnel on the complexities of the German construction laws.

LBB said in an e-mailed statement that it is not possible to release an official completion date.

Chris Miles contributed to this report.

Air Force removes report on project from Web site

Up until the end of November, an Air Force PowerPoint demonstration detailing the problems with the troubled Kaiserslautern Military Community Center was posted on the Internet.

But the file has since been removed from the Air Force Center for Engineering and Environment’s Web site, and the Air Force cannot explain why.

Members of an Air Force task force looking into “lessons learned” on Ramstein Air Base’s mall-hotel project gave the presentation Aug. 21 at the semiannual Program Management Review conference in San Antonio.

Gen. Tom Hobbins, then-commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, set up the task force to find out what went wrong with the delayed project and what could be done to fix it.

About 120 construction experts from the Navy, Army Corps of Engineers and the Air Force attended the conference, center spokesman Mike Hawkins wrote in an e-mail.

Sometime after the conference, the center posted the briefing slides of every presentation given during the three-day workshop. But after Stars and Stripes first began inquiring about the file on Nov. 29, it disappeared.

On Tuesday, the briefing — dubbed “Lessons Learned — Ramstein KMCC and Open Discussion” — was the only presentation missing.

Hawkins said he did not know why the demonstration was removed and referred questions to USAFE.

When asked about why the link was removed, USAFE spokeswoman Lt. Col. Angela Billings said she did not personally ask that it be taken down, or did not know if anybody from the command had it removed.

The report:To view the Air Force’s report on the Kaiserslautern Military Community Center project click here.

Migrated