Interestingly that document suggests the coaster cost less than $10 million? I assume that's not the total cost of the project.
Aaaaaaaaaaaabsolutely not. RMC aren't doing the station, utilities, paths, permits, material disposal from site, and a thousand and one other things that will rack up a massive chunk more money than $10m.
I mean, this is kinda crappy of SeaWorld, but in their defence, this kinda **** happens all the time in construction. Everyone is always trying to better their books, make sure their factories/suppliers can be satisfied, and sometimes these legal documents are more just for record keeping than they are anything else.
The very initial contracts for big projects like this follow pre-designed frameworks that cover things like "what happens if one party fails to meet their obligations", "what happens if the client requests a change halfway through", etc. Instead of having to draft up loads of clauses each time, you just take an off-the-shelf contract (in the UK these are written by people like ICE) and modify it to suit. These pre-designed templates will often say things like "after 60 days from invoice with no payment received, the owed party must submit a completed and signed form
ABC123, regardless of any understanding of payment to be paid in the coming days". It's neat then, as if things do get ugly in the courts, you can prove that you have all the documentation and followed all the procedures. Last thing you want is for SW to stand up and show you didn't hold up your end of the contract, right?
So yeah, whilst a shame to see it come to this, and especially chain-wide, I would wager that this is just a 'cost of business' type thing that RMC and SW are working through.
