Much ado about everything begets new Farmington High

Students will stream in the front doors of the new, long-awaited Farmington High School in about nine months. Construction workers are on track to finish the building -- a three-story, $100 million behemoth that will hold up to 2,000 students -- and school district officials have led tours this fall to give residents a sneak peek at its hands-on science labs, unique recital hall and environmentally friendly features.

But here's something the tour guides don't tout: A legal battle that got the project off to a bad start three years ago led to complications that have dogged construction since.

"The building wasn't a challenge, but the circumstances surrounding the project have been," said Troy Miller, with DLR Group, the high school's architect and one-time construction manager.

Budget problems and disagreements between the school district and city over the project led the architect to draft three different plans for the building, he said.

The project has gone through four construction managers. Now, DLR and the school district are in talks over who is responsible for footing the bill for some portion of $2.5 million to $3 million in changes and fixes made to the building.

Although Miller said the architect's relationship with the district has been good, "We haven't seen a project this complicated -- outside of the effort of building a building -- in the history of the firm or my peer group here (at DLR)."

Any large building project is complex, especially if it has special features such as the energy efficient features that the district is putting in the new high school, said Rosalyn Pautzke, the district's administrative services director. But some of the snags have little to do with the project's size, Miller said.

Plans for the high school hit a rough patch well before the groundbreaking. In 2005, the school district sued the city in a dispute over the building's location. When the dust settled a year later, the district got its site but had to pay for a new road by the school. The delay drove up the cost of construction, largely because of inflation, and the district found itself having to slim down the high school's design.

To save money, the district was advised to put the project out for bids before DLR had finished the design documents, Miller said. The move was made to take advantage of more favorable market conditions, reasoning that Miller said he found valid.

Pautzke said it's not uncommon for large projects to go out for bid before the design is finished. But Miller said the architect warned the district that starting with incomplete plans would likely drive up the cost of change orders, a category of expenses that includes project additions and corrections such as forgotten aisle lights on the recital hall stairs, or the auxiliary gym that the district added to plans this year.

All told, the district is looking at about $5 million to $6 million in change orders, Pautzke said.

It's typical for the district to go over change orders with its architects, Pautzke said. Talks as intensive, though, as those between DLR and the district this fall are unusual, Miller said. "We've never been in this position before," he said.

Both parties say they hope to reach an agreement about who is responsible for paying for each of the change orders in question. It's unclear how much they disagree, but one item under contention is $344,000 that the district paid to settle a claim that one of its contractors, a steel erector, filed as a result of a dispute with DLR, said the building's construction manager, Karl Bozicevich.

Even subtracting an auxiliary gym, which cost about $3 million, change orders for the high school likely exceed 2 percent of the project's construction budget, a figure that Miller said is par for the industry.

But Bozicevich said change orders can be "all over the map," depending on the project.

"It could be 1 percent. It could be 5 percent," he said. "I've been on better, and I've been on worse."

Bozicevich is the fourth construction manager for the new high school. The district started out with M.A. Mortenson Company, a well-respected but expensive firm that the district realized it couldn't afford on its tighter budget, Pautzke said. A second manager wasn't a good match, she said.

Then DLR stepped in for about a year, even though some project contractors objected to having the architect double up as the construction manager. It's a dual role that DLR has played successfully on other projects, Miller said, and one that didn't worry the district, according to Pautzke. But some contractors didn't like the idea of having to report potential design problems in the building to the people who did the designing. As Pautzke put it, "They bid the job with no fox in the henhouse."

The district engaged a fourth construction manager for a variety of reasons, Pautzke said. Each time the district has made a switch, "we have saved money by making the change, and we've been able to put that money into the building," she said.

The district is confident in the safety and integrity of the building, she said, adding that the size of the project has drawn "outstanding" workers. "It's going to be a showcase for many of these contractors."

"Ultimately," Miller said, "I think the time that was gained resulted in a better building."

Sarah Lemagie • 952-882-9016