Oct. 11–DAYTONA BEACH — Gryffin Construction Corp. is the new general contractor on the $192 million Protogroup hotel-condominium project, Protogroup Alexey Lysich said Wednesday.
"This is a good company and I believe it will be a good general contractor for this project," Lysich said by phone. "I'm sure they will be able to get it finished."
But records with the Florida Secretary of State office indicate Gryffin Construction became inactive in late 2016, and only became active again Oct. 6.
Court records also show the company was sued in 2016 over construction of a hotel that has never been built. That lawsuit is active, records show. A News-Journal call to Gryffin Construction owner Craig Stephen Greene was not returned Wednesday.
Work has been stalled for a week on the 4.5-acre site for the planned 501-room Daytona Beach Convention Hotel & Condominiums at the intersection of Oakridge Boulevard and State Road A1A. On Wednesday, the site remained idle.
On Oct. 2, Palm Coast-based developer Protogroup informed the city that it was releasing the project's original general contractor, W.G. Yates & Sons Construction Company. That prompted the city to issue a stop work order on Oct, 3, effective until a new contractor was hired.
There was no word from city officials Wednesday about whether building permits that would enable work to start again on the site had been approved.
At least two permits were under review, according to documents on the city's website. The first was a site work permit for grading and utilities listing Gryffin Construction.
The second was a "Building Comm New Building" permit for the project's South Tower that listed four contractors: Larry Batchelor Mechanical LLC, of Freeport, Florida; Ackerman Plumbing Inc., of Sarasota; P&A Roofing and Sheet Metal Inc., of Orlando; and Carter Electric Company, of Daytona Beach. None of the companies could be reached for comment Wednesday.
Additionally, the owner of the hotel project on the new building permits is not Protogroup, but PDA Trading Inc. The listed owners of that company are also Alexey Lysich and his father, Petr. Both are originally from Russia and now live in Flagler County.
Compared with Yates, a company with a national reputation built over more than 50 years in business, Gryffin's credentials as general contractor are more modest. Originally incorporated in Florida as the Mark Steffan Group/Built-Tech Construction JV, Inc., in Davie in June 2008, the company has changed its name and business addresses multiple times over the past decade.
On Google Earth, the address listed for the company's current headquarters in Port St. Lucie, 2334 SW Webster Lane, is a private residence. Internet searches also reveal no company website and directory assistance found no business telephone number for the company in Port St. Lucie.
In October 2016, the company changed its name from Phoenix Building Corp. to Gryffin Construction Corp., then voluntarily dissolved the company with the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations.
The name change followed a lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court in June 2016 by Chai Developers seeking compensatory damages against Phoenix Building Corp., for the lack of progress on a 153-room Holiday Inn Express & Suites near Aventura in South Florida.
According to the lawsuit, Chai hired Phoenix in 2013 after Greene, the company's president, and his partner Tom D'Iorio informed Chai that their company had 25 years of construction experience, including work on projects that ranged from $3 million to $300 million.
A year later, the lawsuit states, Phoenix delayed payment of $794,884 in impact fees to Miami-Dade County, resulting in an additional charge of $96,389 for the developers, who own the 3.5-acre site at 19800 West Dixie Highway.
In 2015, Phoenix agreed to pay the extra $96,389 and agreed to provide Chai a credit of $300,000 from the general contractor's total profit of $585,000, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit additionally alleges that Chai discovered that Phoenix wrote a bad check to Miami-Dade County for the amount of $794,884. In August, a judge granted a default in judgment in favor of the plaintiff. The case is listed as still open.
