Haywood County commissioners have fired the contractor in charge of renovating the county’s historic courthouse, a project that is now at least four months behind schedule.

The commissioners made the move to terminate the county’s contract with KMD Construction of Salisbury based on a recommendation from project architect PBCL.

The architecture firm selected by the county was responsible for hiring a contractor. PBCL put out a request for proposals and picked KMD from a pool of bids.

KMD started work on the courthouse on February 28, 2007. The original completion date for the project was set for May 16, 2008. The county extended that deadline to June 16. KMD was 410 days into its 450-day contract but had completed roughly 60 percent of the work, said County Manager David Cotton.

In a letter to Cotton, the architects said KMD had insisted that the courthouse renovations could be completed by July 28.

“As of today, there is nearly $3 million worth of construction that is to be completed in less than a three-month period,” PBCL stated in its April 29 letter. “We are seeing no indication that they are capable of completing the project.”

Significant turnover — KMD has had three project managers and two superintendents — a lack of skilled workers and improper materials have marred the project, PBCL said.

“Each time the new person is taking months to get up to speed on the project,” the firm stated in its letter to the county.

The architects also said the granite KMD was using did not meet specifications . PBCL said that KMD was required to submit a critical path based schedule but never submitted one showing completion within the contract time. As of May 1, the contractors presented a 30-day look ahead that contained more than 27 items.

“The presentation of the items indicates a gross misunderstanding of the practical approach to accomplishing a project that requires multiple trades to occupy a small area of the project,” PBCL stated.

The county accepted PBCL’s recommendation and notified KMD of termination of its contract on May 5.

The historic courthouse renovations were estimated to cost $6.8 million. So far, $3.6 million has been paid to KMD.

It’s not clear whether the county will try to recover damages. Cotton said the county is not suing anyone, and would only say that the county has performance and payment bonds — essentially insurance to protect itself.

Commissioners, at the advice of County Attorney Chip Killian, are staying mum on the issue.

There had been some indications that problems were occurring with the contractors. In November 2007 Cotton told The Smoky Mountain News that the firm was about 60 days behind schedule. At that time Cotton said he wasn’t sure if the company would be able to meet the deadline to finish.