At the end of December, Pitt and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit over the cost overruns and work done for the Petersen Event Center. The architectural firm, filed its answer and counter claim.

Apostolou Associates/Rosser International says Pitt and the state Department of General Services rejected its suggestions to trim costs and instead added features that pushed up the cost.

General Services “wanted the costs of the project to be reduced without eliminating items from the design,” a goal, the firm says, that was “unattainable.”

The architects claim they were directed to do extra design work without compensation and to speed up their work.

Apostolou/Rosser made the allegations in response to a lawsuit that Pitt and General Services filed in December in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court. The architects claim that Pitt filed its lawsuit “as a means of redirecting criticism on this project” that was raised by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a series of stories published in April.

This lawsuit will be going on for a while.