The Mardrian Group, the original contractor on the Kentucky Center for African-American Heritage in West Louisville, has filed suit in Jefferson Circuit Court against Metro Government, the KAAHC Foundation and Godsey Associates, the architect on the project.

TMG began work on the project, situated in an old trolley barn, back in 2003. The project was halted in late 2005, after TMG had been paid about $8 million, according to company principal Teresa Bridgewaters. At the time, she said, her company was owed $961,000. Three years later, that bill remains unpaid, while the construction on the project has been re-started with a different contractor, using federal and state money.

Bridgewaters maintains that her company was expecting more work when construction resumed. “They decided to continue the project and doing the work and used someone else,” she said.

TMG has an outstanding case. If the KCAAH Foundation was serious about paying the debt, it would have already sent some of the money to the contractor as an act of good faith. Obviously, it is having a hard time raising the money to both pay its debts and, it hopes, operate the center next year.

It’s time to ask whether the money being poured into the site’s construction is a wise investment as long as the current foundation is tasked with running the place when it’s finished.