Farmington High School: A truly grand opening

The big day is less than a week away.

It's always exciting, but the first day of school is going to be an even bigger deal than usual this fall in Farmington, where more than 1,700 students are expected to stream into the community's brand-new high school on Tuesday.

The three-story building cuts an imposing profile against the city's western farm fields. The school has high-tech science labs, a plush recital hall and a stadium with artificial turf situated mere steps away. Its grand opening comes after months of growing anticipation, with more than 1,000 students and residents touring the building in the past two months alone, Principal Ben Kusch estimated.

It also comes after years of controversy. Litigation, delays and heated debate have left their mark on the building since voters approved construction in 2005. The school is opening a year later than originally planned, with substantial design changes and a bigger pricetag than district officials first expected.

But the project's woes -- and they're not all over yet -- are generating far less buzz these days than the thrill of opening the building.

For student council president Trevor Ausen, the best part of the new school is "definitely the recital hall, hands down. I'm a band geek. It's insane how beautiful that is compared to our auditorium at the old high school."

The excitement has infected even some of the district's loudest critics, including Tim Burke, a school board member who has often voiced displeasure with the way construction of the school has been handled. These days, Burke said he's hearing positive comments about the building from his daughter, a sophomore who has already started playing soccer on the stadium field.

The building's $97 million pricetag includes construction, furniture and other project costs. The construction line item, which ended up at $83 million, was estimated at just under $77 million when Farmington voters approved the project in a 2005 bond referendum, according to district finance director Jeff Priess.

District officials say the increase is partly due to a lawsuit that the district filed against the city in 2005 over the location of the new school. The yearlong dispute and project delay, which happened right around the time that construction costs ballooned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, drove up the project's budget by millions.

To rein in expenses, the school board jettisoned some features of the high school's original design, including sports facilities such as a 25-yard pool and tennis courts.

In 2007, the district came back with a proposal for a $24 million "Sports and Wellness" addition to the high school that would have included an Olympic-size pool and two sheets of ice. But community debate over the plan was contentious -- Burke led the "vote no" campaign -- and nearly 70 percent of voters rejected the idea.

A year later, the school board added a more modest auxiliary gym to the building, along with the stadium's artificial turf.

That may be true of the dispute over the school's location, but another lawsuit is still brewing between the district and the high school's architect, DLR Group. The district fired DLR Group in December after the architect sued the district, claiming non-payment of more than $640,000 in fees. In counterclaims, the district has argued that the architect made a variety of mistakes in the building that cost extra to fix.

A Dakota County district judge recently called for a jury trial in the fall of 2010 for that case.

But the pending litigation will have little, if any, impact on day-to-day life at the new high school, said principal Kusch. "It's just kind of an awareness that it's out there."

Sarah Lemagie • 952-882-9016