Fact Check: When was San Jacinto Plaza supposed to be finished?

After months of admitting San Jacinto Plaza is significantly behind schedule, the City Manager is now contending the completion of the plaza is only four months behind.

“San Jacinto for example, was supposed to be completed in May of 2015, and I know there’s been reports that it’s about a year late and that’s not accurate,” El Paso City Manager Tommy Gonzalez said on ABC-7 Xtra on Sunday night.

ABC-7 went through its archives and every statement and document City officials have released about San Jacinto Plaza for the last couple of years.

Early on, in 2013, City officials said the reconstruction was an 18-month process.

That would have made San Jacinto Plaza ready by December of 2014.

But soon after the City broke ground, City officials began saying the plaza would be done by February 2015 .

“I don’t anticipate any delays to this project. We should be able to give this back to the citizens of February, 2015 like we promised,” Project Manager Rick Venegas told ABC-7 on Aug. 14, 2014.

The City countless times over a period of about a year confirmed the completion date was February 2015 .

But in the Spring, it became clear, BASIC IDIQ, the contractor in charge of the project, would not finish the plaza in February.

That’s when City Officials changed the completion date to the end of May 2015 . When BASIC IDIQ did not finish by May, the City for weeks stopped announcing a deadline. This fall, the City Attorney has said the plaza should be finished by the end of the year, if construction moves as planned.

Gonzalez on Xtra minimized the countless prior deadline assurances from city officials.

“I do think that the (engineering) department… a lot of times are asked when is something going to be done on time and they rush to give an answer without looking at the actual deadline of when that project is supposed to be finished,” Gonzalez said on Sunday .

The City did extend the contract with BASIC IDIQ until May 2015 when the City began charging the contractor $1,000 a day in liquidated damages for not finishing on time.

When the city awarded the job to BASIC IDIQ, other companies who bid for the job balked at the price, telling city council the plaza’s renovation could not be done on time with the original price tab of $4.5 million.