UMass-Lowell drops dorm project
Follows AG ruling that school broke bidding laws
The University of Massachusetts at Lowell has backed out of a $20 million dormitory project after an unfavorable ruling from the attorney general's office that university officials denounced as flawed and filled with "egregious misapprehensions of fact."
The university notified the developer of the 400-student dormitory late Wednesday that it was terminating an agreement to lease the property because of the state's decision, which found that the university violated public bidding laws in awarding the contract. But it also lambasted the decision in a sharply worded letter to Brian O'Donnell, the assistant attorney general who issued the ruling last week.
"Your opinion assumes as fact things that are not true, fails to accord appropriate consideration to the university's legal authority to enter into lease agreements, and conflicts with your prior decisions in this area," wrote Lawrence T. Bench, interim general counsel for the University of Massachusetts system.
"The decision instead is based on undue consideration of minor factors and extraneous information and your unfounded suspicions about the University's intent."
The scathing response marked a sign of frustration over the dorm project, which the university had counted on to help alleviate a mounting housing shortage.
Attorney General Martha Coakley said in a statement yesterday that while her office is sympathetic to the university's need for more housing, "public construction bidding laws . . . require public agencies to follow a fair and open process and to meet certain requirements for the construction of public buildings."
"We urge all public agencies to contact the attorney general's office for advice before they enter into agreements that might implicate the public construction bidding laws," she added.
In its ruling Aug. 13, Coakley's office upheld a complaint from a developer, Academic Village of Medfield, who was passed over for the contract and said the university wrongly sidestepped state bidding laws for public construction projects.
University leaders asserted that the project was private because the firm, Brasi Development of Lowell, would have continued to own and maintain the property, which borders the Lowell campus. Public entities routinely lease private space under similar agreements, they added.
But state lawyers concluded that the university was essentially directing construction and would in all likelihood eventually assume ownership of the dormitory. Bench argued that logic turned "standard lease provisions and tenant protections upside down."
Avoiding public bidding laws gave the university greater leeway in awarding the contract and reduced the cost of the project, administrators said.
Complying with public bidding laws, which require soliciting bids for subcontractors and paying workers prevailing wages, would have delayed the project and caused costs to climb almost 40 percent, said Patti McCafferty, a UMass-Lowell spokeswoman.
In a statement, Chancellor Martin T. Meehan said that canceling the project was a "frustrating turn of events to the people who worked hard on this project, but it is our current and future students that have the most to lose."
The project doesn't make sense now, he said, "given that the students - many of whom already struggle to pay for their education - would bear the burden of these additional costs."
University officials said they were confident in their legal position but said a court battle would be counterproductive.
Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com. 