After waiting 52 days for a $72,499 payment, an audio-visual vendor for Station DC’s new space is expecting to be compensated this coming week, after a lawyer reportedly got involved and Technical.ly asked questions.
“We paid this vendor in full,” said Station DC CEO James Barlia, in a statement. “We value their work and remain focused on delivering a project that creates jobs, investment, economic opportunity and growth for Washington DC.”
The vendor’s cofounder sent several direct messages about the delayed $70k check, including to the Station DC CEO and to this news organization.
The new nonprofit tech incubator launched with the help of a $2 million grant from the city. Located in the Union Market in Northeast, it has a mission to connect policymakers and innovators. The space opened to great fanfare this September after being announced the previous summer.
Extensive construction went into making the 15,000-square-foot space above the famed French restaurant Pastis into a hub complete with conference rooms, leather couches and desks for coworking and events throughout the year.
One of the construction vendors was Florida AV company Unassailable Solutions, according to a contract viewed by Technical.ly.
Unassailable Solutions built a video wall to be used for projections at conferences and events, along with lighting systems, according to cofounder Jason Jaworski. As of the end of October, he’d been paid about $193,000 for material costs and some labor over the course of the project, he said, but not the remaining funds from the total $265,122 contract for most of the services.
Frustrated by a lack of answers from Station DC, he began posting about the situation in LinkedIn, tagging DC council members and the venue’s leadership team. (He later took the posts down, he said, because his wife believed they were too inflammatory.) He also sent several direct messages about the delayed $70k check, including to the Station DC CEO and to this news organization.
“I don’t want to slander anyone. I don’t want to say anything that’s untrue,” Jaworski told Technical.ly. “I just want everyone to know, ‘Hey, this is happening,’ and this company is supposed to be fostering relationships.”
Technical.ly contacted Station DC leadership and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development to find out more about Jaworski’s claims. The city agency got in touch with Station DC, according to spokesperson Ben Fritsch, who also said DC issued two payments to the incubator, the last being in June of this year. The Deputy Mayor’s office is not aware of any formal applications from Station DC for future funding, he said.
Fritsch also noted that DC leadership is excited about Station DC’s work thus far.
Unassailable Solutions’ corporate lawyer also recently got in contact with the incubator’s leadership, per Jaworski.
Now, a payment from Station DC is set to be wired on Dec. 10.
Jaworski said he feels better about the entire situation now that he sees a scheduled payment. He’s had to deal with this before, and has gone to court to settle disputes about payments. But not every small business has that capability.
“Even though Unassailable is doing really well, and we’re financially stable and all that,” Jaworski said, “there’s some companies that are working project to project, and $72,000 can close the company.”
