Hasta Luego, Senor Calatrava

Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava recently informed the City of Denver that he and his firm are withdrawing from the design process for the proposed south terminal at DIA. His firm has indicated they doubt very seriously that the City has the money to complete the project to their standards. Which is probably true, considering that when I first posted the video below last winter, the City had just informed Calatrava that the budget for the project was shrinking, from something like $650 million to $500 million. Calatrava then placed his design on the copy machine and hit “reduce scale 80%”.

The City says it will move forward with the current design. Calatrava and his firm have been paid some $12 million thus far, and the City of Denver will likely shell out another $12 million in legal fees to defend using his design without him on board.