The City of Auburn is seeking funds from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to complete infrastructure for a residential development project that it inherited from King County upon the 2008 annexation of Lea Hill.

According to a lawsuit filed Oct. 11, and now in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the City claims the federal bank regulator owes Auburn $413,612 because of infrastructure for the unfinished Marchini Meadows at Lea Hill, and hasn’t made the promised payments.

“Due to the lack of funds, the City has been unable to complete the Marchini Meadows project,” Auburn attorneys wrote in court documents.

The case begins in 2004 when a construction company, JPS Holdings, LLC, informed King County that it had deposited money into Seattle-based Washington First International Bank as a financial guarantee that it would finish projects in the Marchini Meadows neighborhood of Lea Hill.

In 2008 the City annexed Lea Hill, inheriting the Marchini Meadows project. In 2009, the state dissolved JPS Holdings.

According to the suit, the agreement had been that if the projects should fail to reach completion, the money JPS had deposited would be released from the account.

According to the suit, the City tried in 2010 to collect the money JPS said it had deposited at WFIB, but the FDIC seized and sold the bank.

The City subsequently heard from the successor to WFIB that JPS had never actually deposited money into the account, so the bank didn’t believe it owed Auburn that money.