The Dolores RE-4A School District is suing a Denver architect firm for allegedly underestimating total costs of a major campus construction project.
The district alleges that Eidos Architects was contractually negligent when it estimated total construction costs for renovations and new buildings for the Dolores school to be $5,799,686.
The case was moving toward a jury trial in District Court, but a date has not been set.
The school district claims damages of between $1.5 million and $1.7 million because of the architect’s estimate.
The suit says the mistake created cost overruns, reduced potential funding from a public bond and a BEST grant, and forced the project to be downsized.
“Eidos’ opinion of probable construction costs for $5,799,686 was inaccurate and false by a substantial margin,” states the lawsuit, signed by Stephen G. Everall, an attorney representing the school district.
“As a result ... Dolores was deprived of additional funding from the BEST program and from the Dolores voters at the 2012 November bond election.”
The campus construction project is nearly complete and consists of new science and vocational trades buildings, an expanded elementary school, remodeled locker rooms, facility upgrades and landscaping.
Eidos Architects project manager Rick Nearman disagrees with the lawsuit’s allegations.
“Eidos does not believe the cost estimates were too low, at least for the project the school said it wanted at the time,” Nearman said in an email.
The school district relied on the $5.8 million construction-cost estimate when it applied for a Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) grant available through the Colorado Department of Education.
In August 2012, the District was awarded $2,618,558 in BEST grant funding, which included a 5 percent construction reserve fund of $289,984.
Required matching funds came from a tax bond, approved by voters in November 2012 for $3,471,111, bringing the total budget of the project to $6,089,669.
After the bond election, Dolores retained the services of a general contractor and hired a different architect.
The lawsuit states that as the construction team carried out is duties, it became apparent in the spring of 2013 that Eidos’ opinion of construction costs was “would result in serious and substantial cost overruns even with the cash reserves.”
As a result, according to the complaint, “the construction team expended otherwise unnecessary and additional costs to revise reduce and even eliminate certain improvements” outlined in the revised master plan for construction.
Dolores school officials the school had to dip into its general funds to complete the project.
Eidos refuted the claims, stating a different architect hired by the district changed the scope of the project.
“The project the new architect designed turned out to be much different than what Eidos proposed,” wrote Nearman. “So the district is comparing apples to oranges, which is unfair.”
The district alleges that deficiencies in the cost estimate included calculation errors in the square footage of the improvements, misidentification of new improvements as renovations, and failure to consider applicable state and federal laws.
To stay within budget, the district eliminated $1 million in improvements, including a classroom, and upgrades on the locker rooms and the vocational/agricultural building.
The complaint alleges that unplanned flood plain adjustments cost $200,000 to $400,000.
Nearman stated that “we tried to settle before, but the district wanted the moon. So settlement will be difficult.”