Turner says USC stiffed it on LEED Platinum computer science building

"New York City-based Turner Construction has filed a $12.3 million lawsuit against the University of California for allegedly failing to pay for construction of the school's seven-story, 116,000-square-foot computer science building with a glass facade. Following nonpayment, on Aug. 22, 2025, Turner filed a mechanic's lien against the property, in the sum of just under $12 million for services, labor, tools, materials and equipment."

"Turner built the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Human-Centered Computation Hall, named after the principal donors and known as Ginsburg Hall at 1031 Downey Way on the university's campus. It is part of the Viterbi School of Engineering. It was erected to facilitate USC's artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced computing programs, per the suit filed in California Superior Court on Tuesday. The HOK-designed building, which replaced a parking lot, marks USC's first LEED Platinum-certified structure. It includes a two-story lab for researching and testing autonomous aerial vehicles, open-plan robotics labs, student collaboration spaces and creativity zones, plus a 300-seat auditorium and amphitheater."

"At a ribbon-cutting ceremony in September 2024, then-USC President Carol Folt called the new building, a revolutionary space. She also touted to the media that the project took more than 500,000 hours of labor, 12 million pounds of concrete and 145,000 bricks. It is a centerpiece in Folt's Frontiers of Computing moonshot,' a more than $1 billion initiative that supports ethical advancement in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced computing, the school said in a news release following the ceremony."

Turner Construction filed a $12.3 million lawsuit and recorded a mechanic's lien for just under $12 million alleging nonpayment for construction of Ginsburg Hall. The seven-story, 116,000-square-foot facility at 1031 Downey Way serves the USC Viterbi School of Engineering for artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced computing. The HOK-designed structure is USC's first LEED Platinum-certified building and features a two-story autonomous aerial-vehicle lab, open-plan robotics labs, collaboration and creativity spaces, a 300-seat auditorium and an amphitheater. The project logged over 500,000 labor hours and substantial material use and anchors USC's Frontiers of Computing initiative.

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