An audit of the hotel and transit center at Denver International Airport showed the project’s total cost is just under $720 million, well above the $500 million price tag first announced in 2012.

The project’s budget had increased several times since 2011 along with the scope of the project. The increases in the budget were in part due to rising construction costs and to Denver losing a court case with RTD over how much each entity would have to pay for the new rail stop at the airport. That loss through the legal system added more than $53 million to the cost.

Overall the entire project, including the hotel and transit center and capital improvements to DIA, will cost $714,960,109. That total is 6 percent over the estimated $672,087,660 budget before the Denver Auditor’s Office ordered an audit late last year. The project is being paid for by bonds.

“All of us at Denver International Airport are incredibly proud to have delivered a truly unique hotel and transit center that has elevated our place on the world map and created a stunning new front door to the Mile High City for tens of millions of passengers each year,” said airport CEO Kim Day in a press release. “We worked diligently to control costs and ended up with a project well within the estimated range of our risk assessment. The capital investments we have made, without using taxpayer dollars, will only boost the airport’s economic importance to all of Colorado and help ensure Denver remains competitive in the evolving global aviation market.”

The audit was ordered by Denver Auditor Timothy O’Brien in 2015 to assess the exact cost of the project, a topic he said he was asked about both when he was on the campaign trail in 2015 and after he was elected. When the report was finished, O’Brien said he found nothing in the management and accounting of the project to be out of the ordinary.

Jeffrey Garcia, spokesman for the auditor’s office, said the price range for the project had fluctuated by millions, which was why nailing down an actual total was important for the auditor’s office.”I don’t think in the discussion about the project before the analysis was done that the $714 million number was out there but it wasn’t a surprising number,” Garcia said.