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The architect and construction company blamed for the mold infestation in Midtown Community School have agreed to pay about half of the $13 million renovation costs.
But the third company blamed for the problem — the project's management firm — made a settlement offer that was rejected by the state Schools Development Authority, prompting the authority to threaten a lawsuit to recoup the remaining $6.5 million and to cancel all the company's contracts.
SSP Architectural Group and Turner Construction agreed to pay the settlement after a five-month arbitration period, SDA spokesman Larry Hanover said Thursday.
Turner has agreed to pay $4.5 million and SSP will pay $2 million, Hanover said.
Negotiations with the project manager, Gilbane Building Co., did not go as smoothly.
The SDA rejected Gilbane's final offer — an amount that wasn't disclosed — on Feb. 21, sent the company official notice that it was terminating all the company's contracts if it did not "cure" eight contract violations by next Thursday.
The SDA letter, signed by CEO Scott Weiner, also threatened a lawsuit to recover the final $6.5 million.
Mold was found in exterior walls of the Midtown school early last year, which forced a one-year delay in the building's opening and meant the school's several hundred students and teachers would have to spend another year in trailers parked adjacent to the school.
Workers had to remove the brick facade along several walls, remove and replace the wallboard and then replace the brick facade.
The school is on schedule to open in September, school and state officials said.
In agreeing to make the payments, Turner and SSP admitted errors that contributed to the mold.
"Gilbane, Turner and SSP each failed to meet their contractual obligations to the SDA," Weiner said in a press release. "More significantly, each company let down the schoolchildren of Neptune and the taxpayers of New Jersey."
Gilbane spokesman Wes Cotter declined to comment.

Working in 22 schools
Gilbane currently has contracts worth $57.8 million in 22 schools in Neptune, Long Branch, Asbury Park, Barnegat and Vineland, Hanover said.
All but about $5 million of the contracts' cost has been paid, he said.
The Midtown school project was part of a regional contract which covers 17 of the 22 affected schools in the township, Asbury Park, Barnegat and Vineland, he said.
Hanover said all but $3.9 million of the contract's $23.6 million cost has been paid.
Hanover said that the SDA will terminate all contracts if the problems associated with the Midtown school project are not addressed.
"The reason for the terminations is that we have this fundamental difference in what the roles and responsibilities are for a project management firm," he said.
"If they wanted to cure the contract in question in this letter, that would mean that they had a fundamental shift that's more in the line of what we see, in which case everything would be up for discussion as far as to continue on with them," Hanover said.
Neptune Schools Superintendent David Mooij said he was surprised by the action.
"There were some quality projects built here while they were on board," he said. "But I'm sure the SDA had sufficient cause to terminate their contractual obligations."
Mooij said he was "pleased" that the SDA will allocate more people to the Midtown project while it is looking for a new project manager.
"They said it should not affect the schedule," he said.
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