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City Faces Fire Code Failures

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By CHRISTIAN M. WADE

cwade@tampatrib.com

Published: March 6, 2009

TAMPA - Recent inspections of the Tampa Convention Center's new fire alarm system have found a number of deficiencies, including faulty strobe lights and smoke detectors, raising questions about the safety of a city-owned facility that hosts tens of thousands of people.

In January, a test of the system by Advanced Engineered Systems discovered that multiple warning strobe lights were not functioning, elevators had no emergency phone jacks and there were no evacuation speakers in several meeting rooms. One smoke detector was hanging from its wires.

More than two months later, the equipment has not been repaired.

City officials claim there is no safety risk and say such deficiencies are normal for a fire alarm system serving a 60,000-square-foot facility.

Bill Sharpe, the center's chief building engineer, said the city is working to fix the problems with the company that installed the system, Automated Building Control Systems.

"We're trying to get it resolved," he said. "We've had problems with this from the get-go."

Chris Mosley, a representative for ABC Systems in Tampa, declined to comment.

Tampa fire marshals inspected the new fire alarm system in November 2007 and found numerous deficiencies, including smoke detectors not installed on the ceilings. Those problems were resolved before a follow-up fire inspection in September.

Capt. Bill Wade, a fire rescue spokesman, said the fire marshal is planning to conduct an inspection of the facility this week to determine whether the deficiencies violate fire codes.

What's more, convention center officials apparently didn't inform the fire marshal's office about the inspection, as required by state law.

"They should have told us about the inspection," he said. If the fire marshal finds the same problems that Advanced Engineered Systems found, the convention center will be asked to fix the problems and will have a follow-up inspection in 30 days.

From the outset, the convention center's alarm system has been plagued by problems.

For one, the work was completed under an emergency affidavit that prevented the city from putting the project out to bid. The first contractor, Airwaves Inc., went bankrupt halfway through the project.

Shortly after, ABC Systems was hired to take over the project, which was completed in fall 2007.

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