All of the news about this event seems to avoid the obvious. No construction manager or design team on a project of this magnitude would jeopardize their relationship with the Town without extreme pressure from the property owner. The direction to proceed with these changes without official sanction must have come from the top. In fact, it's quite possible these "changes" were planned from the beginning, but would have triggered a lengthier, costlier and more controversial review.

The local team will probably never speak freely about this, so we'll never find out. But we do have pretty good information that the owner is truly an "out-of-towner" who may have little regard for local sensibilities but does have plenty of money to buy the loyalty of his workers.

I'm not working with any insider knowledge here. Just been there, done that!