The general contractor who built Latrobe Elementary School is suing a school district administrator and consultants for more than $1.6 million to recoup money it says was withheld due to delays.

The $24.8 million school that houses about 700 students in grades K-6 opened Dec. 4. It was to have opened in August, but project officials at the time cited construction delays including rain that had interfered with concrete work and a switch to flooring that would allow for higher moisture content in concrete.

Dean Falavolito, the attorney for general contractor Nello Construction Company, asserts in the civil complaint filed this week in Westmoreland County that delays were triggered by three defendants — the Greater Latrobe School District’s project site manager, Foreman Program and Construction Managers of Zelienople, project architect Axis Architecture and Kurt Thomas, the district’s director of operations and planning.

The suit claims the defendants colluded “to harm Nello’s interests in the project,” to blame Nello for the delays and to deny payment of its contract balance of about $1.2 million — plus “delay damages” that would push the total to more than $1.6 million, according to Falavolito. The suit also seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

Falavolito said most of the money being sought is owed to subcontractors and noted Nello also initiated arbitration proceedings against the district in the matter. Nello’s original contract for the project was just under $16 million.

Phillip Foreman, president of the Foreman Group Companies, said Wednesday that his company and Axis are representing the district, which he said disagrees with Nello’s assertions.

“The school district is speaking with Nello, along with our firm and Axis architects,” Foreman said. “It’s going to litigation.”

Axis, Thomas and district solicitor Ned Nakles didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.

According to the suit, the three defendants “would have multiple ‘side’ meetings whereby it would exclude Nello from conversations and make plans to ‘hang’ their scheduling, supervision and design failures on Nello.” The complaint alleges Foreman representative George Dickerson participated in such a discussion during a telephone conference.

“I don’t know anything about that conversation,” Foreman said. “You end up in conflicts when you’re doing a school construction project. Sometimes it gets caustic.”

The suit claims that the three defendants “actively delayed work on the project that was not Nello’s responsibility,” citing delays in phone line connection and sewer line hook-ups.

According to the complaint, Thomas “was openly hostile to Nello and made efforts to disrupt its timely work” while Foreman “failed to provide proper and timely schedules for the project, which delayed Nello’s work on the project and/or gave the appearance that Nello was not timely completing its work.”

The suit also claims that Axis “wrote specifications for the project that were defective” and “failed to clearly identify that permanent HVAC controls were required prior to Nello being able to complete its project work.”

According to correspondence included as exhibits in the suit, Falavolito wrote to Axis on Jan. 7 claiming Nello experienced a delay of 55 work days related to HVAC-related problems. The letter states that HVAC units should have been running on June 1 in a section of the school to allow floors to dry and allow Nello to begin flooring installation by the end of that month, but HVAC problems allegedly persisted until Sept. 13 in some classrooms and into mid-October in the school gym.

In a Jan. 16 response, Pittsburgh attorney W. Alan Torrance Jr., who was hired as the district’s legal counsel for construction, charged that Nello didn’t follow the project schedule and “caused the delay of the structure, the roofing, the HVAC equipment and other material installation required to provide an environment for sound construction.”

According to Torrance’s letter, Nello tried to use the school’s new HVAC system to condition the gym when doors were left open and windows weren’t installed. The letter states that Nello “was required to provide the necessary equipment to condition the space until… at least 50% of the total floor area of the building was enclosed.”

Nello asserts that Axis should have served as a neutral decision maker in the contractor’s claims against the district. Instead, the suit states, because the claim denial came from the district’s legal counsel, it essentially allowed “the school district to serve as the decision maker in a claim against itself.”

Torrance on Wednesday would not say if he is representing the district in the suit but did say “the school district has done everything in accordance with the contract,” adding that any allegation to the contrary is without merit.

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