Farmington High School suit settled

An exchange of payments -- $640,000 for the architects and $4.2 million for the Farmington School District -- marks the end of a legal dispute over the new high school that dragged out beyond the building's 2009 opening.

The Farmington School Board approved the settlement Monday evening.

The school district, by the end of the month, will pay DLR Group the amount the architectural firm requested in its initial claim for unpaid work at the school. DLR Group will also be allowed access to the building, and a plaque will be installed that states that the building was designed by DLR.

The school district will collect a $3.64 million payment from DLR before the month's end. The architects will also make three annual $200,000 charitable contributions to the district's "Construction Fund," starting in 2011.

School Board Member Veronica Walters read a statement that said, "All claims have been settled on terms satisfactory to both the school district and DLR Group."

Neither party admitted liability or wrongdoing.

Amy Rotenburg, a spokeswoman for DLR Group, said, "The decision to go forward and make a settlement that includes payment by DLR to the school district is based on our desire to move beyond this, to avoid the very expensive litigation and additional attorneys' fees, as well as the time of a seven-week trial."

The dispute didn't come without cost for the school district, which spent $2.5 million on the case, said Rosalyn Pautzke, the district's administrative services director. It paid $1.5 million to its lawyers and $1 million to experts for evaluation of the building.

DLR Group sued the school district in November 2008, claiming that it had not been paid for $640,000 of work on the high school. The district fired DLR Group in December 2008 and countersued, saying the architects had not fulfilled contractual obligations and made mistakes in the building.

That lawsuit was just one of the controversies over the $97 million project. The district sued the city in 2005 over a disagreement about the school's location. When the dispute was settled a year later, the district got its site but had to pay for a new road.

Some features of the original design were axed after the cost rose almost $20 million beyond the estimated $83 million the district estimated when voters approved a referendum in 2005.

And nearly 70 percent of voters rejected a 2007 attempt by the district to add a "Sports and Wellness" addition to the school.