ST. LOUIS — Plans for an international cargo facility at St. Louis Lambert International Airport have collapsed, with the would-be operator in a lawsuit accusing airport officials of improperly terminating the deal last May and locking out his company’s employees.

“We were almost ready to launch everything” regarding rehab work at the site, Ricardo Nicolopulos, founder of Bi-National Gateway Terminal Inc., said Wednesday.

“We had trading partners, we had clients. Then all of a sudden they slammed the door in our face.”

The suit, filed Aug. 26 by Nicolopulos and Bi-National against the city of St. Louis, alleges that airport Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge acted without legal authority to end the contract.

Such action, the suit asserts, could be taken only via an ordinance passed by the Board of Aldermen and signed by the mayor and comptroller.

Among other things, the suit also alleged that the city canceled the deal “for the purpose of advancing the goal of key City officials to privatize“ Lambert.

Hamm-Niebruegge declined to comment Wednesday on the allegations in the lawsuit.

Asked what would happen now to the site — a long-vacant aircraft manufacturing complex — she said it has great value but that ’’we haven’t decided what to do at this point.”

The complex was built by Curtiss-Wright Corp. in the early 1940s to produce Navy dive bombers and other military aircraft.

Nicolopulos had said in January that he hoped work would begin in March on the project’s $56 million first phase totaling 1.1 million square feet.

He was interviewed then after the city Airport Commission had approved a revised version of the long-stalled project. He had backed off an earlier version approved in 2015 that called for demolition of the complex.

In the lawsuit, Nicolopulos and Bi-National also alleged that they had been advised by city employees and officials that the project “would not go smoothly” unless Bi-National included “a certain construction firm favored by the City and some of its officials.”

The suit doesn’t name the firm but Nicolopulos in an interview said that he was referring to CRG, the real estate arm of the Clayco construction and development firm.

Last January, airport officials said CRG would act as the revised project’s developer and work with Bi-National.

Bob Clark, who heads CRG and Clayco, said in an email that “we have no knowledge” of city officials pushing for CRG to be added to the project as Nicolopulos alleged.

Instead, he said, Nicolopulos and an associate had approached CRG about joining the project.

“Ricardo was not performing and was in danger of losing the deal for nonperformance,” Clark said. “Ricardo told us he needed to restore his credibility and that a partnership with us or another reputable firm like us could help him ... restore faith” with the city.

After CRG joined the project team, Clark said, “we found Ricardo’s partners acting in good faith and having the same issues of unreliability as all the other parties including us experienced.”

He said also that Nicolopulos did not understand how historic tax credits and brownfield remediation tax credits worked and “could not provide the financial credibility to complete that rigorous process.” The tax credits were part of the financing plan.

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