CREW Dissects Project Delivery Methods

Bob Sine pulled no punches when he spoke to real estate professionals last week at a meeting of CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women) St. Louis.

"The owner gets the best value from design-bid-build," he said, and people who say that the traditional way of delivery construction has put the industry into crisis don't know what they are talking about. "Integrated forms of project delivery don't serve the owner," he added.

Sine, vice-president project management at CresaPartners, spoke as part of a panel on project delivery methods along with Marvin Johnson, senior project manger, BJC Healthcare; Sue Pruchnicki, principal, Bond Wolfe Architects; and Scott Wittkop, central division president, McCarthy Building Companies. CresaPartners is a corporate real estate firms that represents tenants exclusively.

The other panelists said little, if anything, that would be controversial to construction professionals. They all indicated that the best project delivery method for any project depends on the size and complexity of the project.

Johnson said that 60 percent of BJC's projects cost less than $200,000, and "design-bid-build is appropriate for them."

On larger projects, design/build may be appropriate, "but the more sophisticated the owner is, the better," he said.

And on very large major hospital projects, such as the six-story West Pavilion tower at Missouri Baptist Medical Center, the health care company is using integrated project delivery, said Johnson.

Wittkop said that the more technically complex a project is, the more value there is in involving contractors early. He cautioned, however, that with design/build, the owner has to more clearly define expectations up front, "or the design/build team will give you the minimum of what they think you need."

If collaboration is important, than design-bid-build is not the best way to go, he added.

"Random matching doesn't work," Wittkop said. "You can't contract for collaboration," he said. The key to successful collaboration is the selection of the team members.

Wittkop said that four years ago, integrated project delivery was part of every project that McCarthy was invited to bid on. Since the recession it has been all hard bid (design-bid-build), but integrated project delivery is starting to come back," he said, noting that two weeks ago in Denver McCarthy executed its first integrated project delivery agreement.

Sine said he had no experience with integrated project delivery, but he was down on design/build.

"A little bit of design and a lot of build," he called it.

"It is better to have independent professional design up to a point, and then delegate the design of how to install things to the contractor," Sine said.

That is really what is happening, Pruchnicki said. So many systems that are used in modern buildings vary from manufacturer to manufacturer that architects can't design in detail how they will go into the building and relate to other components, she said. How elevators go into a building are differ depending on the elevator company. Each variable refrigerant volume chiller maker has a different arrangement of piping. Modern walls now consist of many thin materials from different manufacturers.

"We can't include all versions on documents, so we write criteria and the contractor has to figure it out," she said.

"There are very few projects now where the architect finishes the design, puts an ad in the paper, and then talks to contractors. It really isn't happening," Pruchnicki said.

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