Sarasota · Sarasota County

Sarasota Construction Expert Witnesses

Delay, disruption, termination, construction defects and first-party claims.

Schedule and delay analysis for Sarasota County condominium, barrier-island, storm-recovery and public projects, from our Clearwater office, about 47 miles by road across the Sunshine Skyway.

Sarasota County's construction is spread between a downtown with mid- and high-rise residential towers, barrier islands from Longboat Key to Siesta Key and Venice, and inland growth along the I-75 corridor. Recent hurricane seasons added a long tail of repair, reconstruction and elevation work on top of that. A schedule dispute here often turns on something outside the jobsite fence: a storm shutdown, a permitting backlog after a storm, or a coastal approval that took longer than planned.

Oxley's Clearwater office is about 47 miles by road from the Judge Lynn N. Silvertooth Judicial Center in downtown Sarasota, roughly an hour's drive by I-275 and the Sunshine Skyway in normal traffic. Daniel R. Zorrilla, J.D., BSBC, CGC, CFCC, leads the analysis and gives the testimony.

Owners, developers and condominium associations: schedule reviews while the project is running, before a completion date becomes a dispute.

Contractors: time questions on a live project are easier to analyze while the records are current. The analysis addresses what the schedule and records show.

Courts serving Sarasota County

State court: Twelfth Judicial Circuit, which covers Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. In Sarasota County, civil matters are heard at the Judge Lynn N. Silvertooth Judicial Center, 2002 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota, and at the South Sarasota County Courthouse in Venice.

Appeals: Florida's Second District Court of Appeal, headquartered in St. Petersburg.

Federal court: Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, Sam M. Gibbons U.S. Courthouse, Tampa.

Arbitration and mediation: under the AAA's construction rules or another procedure the contract names, common on private condominium and commercial projects.

Barrier-island and storm-recovery schedules

Coastal work in Sarasota County runs on a different clock than inland work. Bridges and single access roads limit deliveries and crane mobilization, flood-zone elevation and coastal permitting add approvals that can sit on the critical path, and existing structures often reveal conditions that were not in the drawings until demolition begins. A delay analysis has to separate those risks and show which of them actually moved completion.

Storm-recovery projects add their own questions. After a hurricane, a contractor may be dealing at once with site shutdown and cleanup, damage to work in place, labor and material shortages across the region, and slower permitting and inspections. Some of that time may be excusable, some compensable and some neither, depending on the contract. The analysis sorts the events and measures each one's effect on the schedule; how the contract allocates the time is for counsel and the tribunal.

He also worked in project management for national and regional general contractors on hotel and condominium projects throughout South and Central Florida. That was his employment with general contractors, not Oxley's work. His experience as an expert includes high-rise condominiums, hotels and student housing.

Selected project experience

Daniel R. Zorrilla's Florida work includes projects he managed for general contractors and later consulting and expert assignments. Consulting and expert work is described by project and issue type only.

After moving into consulting in 2008, he returned to the contractor side from 2014 to 2015 as a senior project manager for West Palm Beach-based KAST Construction on the $145 million Westin Sarasota hotel and Vue Sarasota condominium.

Projects managed.

  • Westin Sarasota hotel and Vue Sarasota condominium (Senior Project Manager for the general contractor).
  • Ventana condominium, Tampa. Senior Project Manager.
  • Regatta condominiums, North Beach (Miami-Dade). Project Manager.
  • The Park at Riverbridge, West Palm Beach. Project Manager.
  • Porto Bellagio condominiums, Sunny Isles Beach. Assistant Project Manager.

Sarasota County consulting and expert assignments.

  • The Jewel condominium, Sarasota.
  • High-rise mixed-use development, Sarasota. Delay, completion, and defects.
  • Residential development infrastructure, Lakewood Ranch. Delay and completion cost.
  • Residential development infrastructure, Manatee and Sarasota counties. Delay.

Weather days, shutdowns and the schedule record

Weather time requests depend on the records. The analysis typically compares the contract's weather provisions and any baseline weather allowance with daily reports, site photos, superintendent logs and the dates the site was secured and reopened. For named storms, it also looks at what was done to protect the work, what had to be redone, and how long remobilization actually took compared with what was reported.

For an owner or an association, the same review can show whether a requested extension tracks the actual shutdown and recovery, or folds in delays that started before the storm.

Public owners and project types in Sarasota County

Sarasota County, the City of Sarasota, the City of North Port, the City of Venice, Sarasota County Schools, the Sarasota Manatee Airport Authority and FDOT District One all build in the county, from utilities, roads and parks to schools and airport facilities. Private work ranges from downtown towers and barrier-island condominiums to master-planned residential communities and commercial development inland. Each public owner uses its own contract forms, schedule specifications and time-extension procedures. These owners are named to describe the market, not as Oxley clients.

What we provide

  • Baseline and schedule update review for owners, associations and lenders' representatives
  • Time impact analysis for weather, storm and change-related extension requests, prepared or reviewed
  • Forensic delay analysis using the method that fits the records, including whether delays were concurrent on the critical path. How concurrent delay is treated depends on the contract and applicable law, which are for counsel and the tribunal.
  • Disruption and lost productivity analysis for access-restricted and resequenced work
  • Delay damages and extended general conditions
  • Expert reports, deposition, hearing and trial testimony, and mediation support

Credentials and independence

Daniel R. Zorrilla, J.D., BSBC, CGC, CFCC, leads the work and testifies. He has worked in construction consulting and expert work since 2008, with a return to project management in 2014–2015, and has testified in more than 40 cases. He has been retained as a consultant or expert in more than 100 construction matters. He is a Florida Supreme Court Certified County and Circuit Court Mediator (Florida Courts mediator lookup). He is a member of The Florida Bar and does not practice law.

We act for only one party on a project, and fees do not depend on findings. Dan's full profile →

Elsewhere on the Gulf Coast

See Bradenton & Manatee County, St. Petersburg, Naples & Fort Myers and Tampa, or read how we approach construction delay expert work. Call 727-821-9190 or send a message.