MLB Construction Services has amended its lawsuit against the Albany County Airport Authority to allege that the authority knew, before it sought bids for the Albany International Airport terminal expansion and renovation, that the final price tag could reach $180 million — almost double its budget.

The Malta, New York-based contractor filed its original suit in July in state Supreme Court in Albany, seeking $12 million plus interest for unpaid work on the terminal project. The initial filing included details of pressure to finish the terminal lobby by the end of April so airport officials could hold a news conference, despite other delays at the time.

The amended complaint runs 37 pages, up from 24 in the original. It alleges the airport authority, known as ACAA, chose to break the single project into four separate bid packages when it announced the public bidding process.

"ACAA's plan was to split the single project into four separate bid packages so as to drive down pricing, conceal design deficiencies, and obtain lower pricing from contractors, who would not know about the problems with the job until the bid package was awarded and under construction, at which point it would be too late to revise their bid," the amended complaint alleges.

The complaint further alleges that the design phase of the expansion had not been completed when the bid package was released, and needed another nine months to be finalized.

"Nonetheless, ACAA prematurely released the bid package with an improper design that it knew or should have known would cause the contractor to incur substantial cost and scheduling impacts," the complaint states. "Even worse, upon information and belief, ACAA was advised that the design was not ready to be released to the public for bid, and that the cost of the project would be far greater than ACAA's desired $100 million budget."

The new filing puts the estimated cost at the time closer to $180 million, though the complaint itself does not detail how that figure was derived.

MLB, a firm with nearly 80 years of history that previously helped the airport build its rotunda and pedestrian bridge — both since replaced under the newest expansion — won two of the four contracts, worth a combined $79 million, awarded in August and October 2023. Since then, the company says it has faced substantial cost and schedule overruns.

The authority and its design team have issued more than 2,000 reworked design drawings to address deficiencies uncovered during construction, the complaint alleges. Nearly 1,000 design revisions over the course of the project contributed to a two-and-a-half-year delay and more than $2.5 million in costs borne by subcontractors, according to the filing.

CHA, a local civil engineering firm, designed the project. Turner Construction served as project manager. Neither is named as a defendant.

"The Albany County Airport Authority disagrees with the claims contained in MLB's amended complaint and intends to file a motion to dismiss," Matt Hunter, a spokesman for Albany International Airport, said in a statement. "We will respond to MLB's specific claims through the court process when our attorneys file that motion. Our focus remains on completing the terminal expansion project and delivering these important improvements to the traveling public."

The expansion is funded almost entirely with state and federal grant money. Attorneys for MLB did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the amended complaint, and the authority's motion to dismiss will frame the next stage of a dispute that now exposes an $80 million gap between the authority's stated budget and the contractor's account of what the project was expected to cost.