Gilbane Building Company is taking heavy fire after regulators hit the construction giant with a $1.9 million penalty for misrepresenting its compliance with diversity requirements on the Worcester Polar Park development, a high-profile project that relied on public dollars and carried strict mandates for minority business participation.
The fine has reignited concerns about the company’s conduct on government projects, including earlier allegations of False Claims Act violations that cost the firm $1.1 million in a separate Massachusetts settlement.
The controversy lands at an awkward moment for Gilbane, which is part of the Fort Lauderdale Beacon Collaborative and is seeking to win the contract to build Fort Lauderdale’s new City Hall. That effort now unfolds under a cloud after investigators concluded the firm “fudged” key numbers involving minority business enterprise contracting at Polar Park, inflating its reports to suggest broader participation than actually occurred. Those findings cut directly against the public commitments Gilbane made to officials and taxpayers when the ballpark project was approved.
Public records and court filings paint a bleak picture of how the company handled its obligations. Instead of meeting the project’s diversity goals, Gilbane allegedly massaged its figures to protect its own standing and preserve the appearance of compliance. The result, according to regulators, wasn’t a harmless clerical error but a deliberate distortion that cost legitimate minority-owned subcontractors real opportunities. In a sector that already struggles with equitable access to public contracts, the alleged misconduct struck a nerve.
The $1.9 million settlement follows the earlier $1.1 million payout tied to separate False Claims Act allegations, prompting watchdog groups and local activists to question whether the company can be trusted with another major publicly funded construction project. Critics argue that the repeated problems reveal systemic cultural and oversight failures rather than isolated lapses.
As Fort Lauderdale leaders inch toward choosing a design team for the new city hall, scrutiny of Gilbane has intensified. In an era when transparency is no longer optional and taxpayers expect accuracy from firms receiving public money, the company’s recent history is proving hard to ignore.
The lingering question is whether a firm with this kind of track record has any business competing for another marquee government project at all.
