A company tied to the Heat "waited until Christmas Eve to sue the city’s premier architectural firm over a long-simmering, multimillion-dollar dispute over design and construction" of AmericanAirlines Arena, according to Patricia Mazzei of the MIAMI HERALD. Basketball Properties Limited, the Heat sister company that manages the Miami-Dade County-owned arena, "claimed in its sharply worded lawsuit" that Miami-based Arquitectonica was "in over its head when it took on the project -- and that the firm appeared more concerned with making a name for itself and racking up fees than with meeting deadlines and sticking to a budget." The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, states Arquitectonica’s “self-aggrandizement turned out to be fiction.” Basketball Properties wants Arquitectonica "to pay millions of dollars to cover cost overruns and years of legal expenses." The complaint also "alleges that Arquitectonica at times appeared more concerned with making the arena look good rather than making it functional." The arena operator "began fighting Arquitectonica shortly after the facility opened." But the "protracted dispute has taken years because Basketball Properties had to go through the firm’s insurer, Reliance Insurance of Pennsylvania." Arquitectonica has "argued the statute of limitations in the case has expired; the arena operator contends an agreement Arquitectonica entered into during an early arbitration action has kept the case alive." Basketball Properties "wants to go after the firm for what the operator says is the full amount of its damages: more than" $17M (MIAMI HERALD, 12/25).
