Water Design-Build Council Blog

A nationally-recognized expert on project delivery systems and author of several books on the subject, Michael has worked on some of the country’s most complex public sector design-build projects in the transportation and water/wastewater sectors. Some of his notable engagements include DC Water’s Clean River and Biosolids programs, the City of Houston’s Northeast Water Purification Plant Expansion Project, and Metropolitan Wastewater District’s Northeast Treatment Plant.

Design-build provides benefits for both owners and practitioners. It gives the owner the ability to contract with a single entity which bears the full responsibility for the design, quality, construction and commissioning of a project.

 As the final weeks of being President of the Water Design Build Council conclude in 2015, I stand amazed by what we have accomplished within the very spirit of collaboration that is design build.  Over the past year, the Water Design-Build Council has held true to its mission:

This topic – perhaps the most crucial to any utility or agency desiring to pursue a design-build delivery for their project – is also one that is becoming more in demand. Capturing comments from one of Water Design-Build Council's recent discussions with a major utility, are passed on as "lessons learned" for others to consider.

In an effort to relocate freight traffic out of Orlando, Florida, CSX offered to purchase the City of Winter Haven’s 1,200-acre spray field for the development of an intermodal station. The city was interested in selling the property in order to gain the financial benefit of the sale price and to create economic development and additional tax revenue for the community.

The Town of Castle Rock, Colorado, faced demand projections that exceeded their available water supply. The town identified properties for deep-aquifer well development and transmission to their newly constructed water treatment facility.

In 2012 the Water Design-Build Council produced a new Procurement Guide for Progressive Design-Build Projects for use by the water industry for infrastructure projects. The WDBC also released the findings of a separate research study reporting that legislative statutes in 13 key states (randomly selected throughout the United States) contained language representing impediments to furthering the use of progressive design-build as a delivery method for water and wastewater infrastructure projects.

Risk and liability allocation in a design-build or CMAR contract generally follows the principle that risks should be allocated to the party in the best position to manage them. Whether it is the owner or the design-build or CMAR firm that prepares the contract, a risk allocation matrix can provide a useful starting point.

A risk allocation matrix identifies potential risks across a project and then allocates or shares these risks between the owner and a firm. The objective is to reduce the owner’s risk-related costs by taking into account the following concepts.

Progressive design-build procurement enables an owner to select the design-builder on the basis of qualifications. It is recognized, however, that some owners may not want, or may not have the ability (due to applicable law), to base selection solely on qualifications. The WDBC model documents, therefore, include RFQ and RFP templates for best-value (incorporating both price and non-price factors), as well as qualifications-only selection.

Although many facts of managing a construction management at-risk project are similar to managing a design-build project, there are distinctive differences. Much like design-build projects, CMAR projects are also all about teamwork and reaping the benefits of constructor collaboration as early as possible in design development. In contrast, however, a CMAR project owner has separate contractual relationships with the CMAR firm and the designer.

Because of this, as well as other differences, owners overseeing a CMAR project should make the following considerations when putting together a project management plan.