The Sunflower County-based Fannie Lou Hamer Cancer Foundation (FLHCF) has filed a lawsuit at the Sunflower County Courthouse in Indianola against IMS Engineering regarding the firm’s work on the foundation’s future Ruleville headquarters.
According to the lawsuit, filed on Jan. 28, FLHCF alleges that IMS Engineering, Executive Vice President Tommy Avant, and other unnamed defendants have failed to provide proof of insurance coverage for the project, and they are not acting in a professional manner as outlined in the contract with the Foundation.
Further still FLHCF alleges that IMS and others submitted invoices showing 70% completion of a project at the Foundation, but the Foundation says that as of the date the suit was filed, less than 40% of the work had actually been completed.
The FLHCF is seeking relief from the courts, stating that IMS, Avant, and others owe a duty to the Foundation to provide administration services for the headquarters in accordance with all professional and design standards.
The project, which began in 2014, has faced numerous setbacks, including contractor disputes, funding shortages, and construction delays.
Ground was first broken on the project in 2019, according to an article in The Enterprise-Tocsin at the time.
According to the lawsuit, the Foundation’s board of trustees held an emergency meeting in December to discuss the work being done at its headquarters site.
The latest allegations against IMS Engineering only add to a long list of challenges to the construction of the 17,000-square-foot cancer resource facility.
The Foundation received $1.5 million from the State of Mississippi and the rest from donations, but cost overruns in phase one now have the Foundation facing rising costs of construction materials not budgeted for during the planning phase.
The first phase of construction, initially expected to take 60 days, lasted nearly a year, and the estimated $500,000 cost for the first phase exceeded its budget by more than double the amount expected.
According to the lawsuit, IMS contracted with the Foundation to oversee every phase of the project from design through the final completion, currently scheduled for May of this year, which seems unlikely given the legal issues at hand.
As of now, work has ground to a halt at the site because of inaccurate invoicing issues from the replacement contractor overseen by IMS.
Documents list drywall and tile among items showing more than 90% completion, but a tour of the unfinished building in northern Sunflower County last week found the project to be substantially incomplete compared to the document.
There were no visible signs that drywall had been installed, and no tile work appeared to have been started.
Despite these setbacks, the Foundation remains committed to finishing the project, which aims to provide free cancer screenings, patient resources, and educational programs to underserved residents in the Delta.
