Texas Contractor Takes Heat for Slow Atlanta Construction.

Byline: Chandler Brown

Oct. 28--A Texas-based general contracting company has botched plans for more than $35 million in public building projects across metro Atlanta, officials said.

Construction delays --- stretching for more than a year --- by David Christopher Inc. have set back schedules for projects including schools, libraries and a county courthouse.

In Rockdale County, more than 1,000 students from two schools are packed into Honey Creek Elementary because construction at nearby Peek's Chapel Elementary still is far from complete, three months into the school year.

In McDonough, as shop owners decorate storefronts for next Sunday's annual Henry County Christmas festival, some worry about how to mask a courthouse construction site, an eyesore that should have been finished months ago.

And in Walton County, delays at the new Social Circle Middle-High School have dashed hopes of 75 seniors who dreamed of becoming the school's inaugural graduating class.

All nine of DCI's projects in four metro counties have been delayed since the company burst onto the Atlanta construction scene two years ago.

"I think he just bit off more than he could chew," said Mike Dunham, executive vice president of the Georgia branch of Associated General Contractors of America. "He came down here and underbid all these projects and it was obviously too much to handle."

"He" is DCI head David…