Family album

Industry and government adopt the design/build cause

By Chris Thompson

It wasn't too long ago that design/build was nothing more than a glimmer in a legislator's eye.
That glint has grown into an insecure adolescent adopted by lawmakers, lobbyists and bureaucrats. But design/build has matured as more than an Isthmus debate; it's assumed a life of its own with a fate that is still very much up in the air.

Bob Brandherm, administrator of the State Division of Facilities Development and secretary to the State Building Commission, said he believes design/build is far older than many people think.

"In the history of the world, the first use of design/build was a caveman who designed a tool that never existed and had to fashion it for his own use," he said. "The concept is pretty simple."

He should have a strong grasp on the issue because Gov. Tommy G. Thompson has turned to Brandherm to pull all the contradictory industry interests into a design/build consensus package. With a little compromise and a lot of luck, Brandherm said he thinks he can come up with design/build language for the next state budget bill.

"Have I reached consensus language yet? No. Will I? I'm hopeful, but I'm not making any guarantees," he said. "Is there a place for design/build? Yes, but the question is how to use a process that is new to some people while maintaining the public trust. Anytime the process is used, there has to be a professional representing the owner's interests and, I think, a very heavy emphasis on cost."

Brandherm said he first met with construction organizations and lobbyists in July, after it became clear the industry was dragging its feet finding design/build consensus.

"Obviously, the various groups had not reached agreement on language, and to me there are some fairly substantial differences in opinion, and many people involved in the traditional process are concerned," he said. "Design/bid/build has been used in the public sector for decades, probably longer, and anytime design/build is proposed there are questions."

Questioning design/build's effectiveness and fairness is as old as the delivery method's use at the state level. Brandherm said the state first showcased design/build on the General Executive Facility 2 on Webster Street in Madison in the early 1980s.

"I'm sure there were some uses before that, but I think that was the most significant," Brandherm said. The Building Commission "seemed to think it was a cost-effective way during a time when the state needed cost-effective spending."

The results of GEF 2 didn't exactly set off a rush to use design/build on the state level, Brandherm said.
"I can say that aesthetically, it's low on the list, and ever since then the state has been criticized for not having a lot of originality," he said. "The building was designed using the most current design and construction methods of the time, some of which had never been tried on state buildings in the past. Some were cost-effective and others were not."

The GEF 2 project also sparked one of the early battles over the state using taxpayer money for design/build, said William Babcock, executive director of the Wisconsin Society of the American Institute of Architects.

"Word-of-mouth has it that one of the specialty trades, I think it was the plumbers, fought GEF tooth and nail and there were legal battles," he said.

The committee quandary

GEF 2 and other, less significant, state design/build projects started a clamor for local governments' authority to use the delivery system, Babcock said. In 1986, AIA started its Qualification Based Selection Committee, which later teamed up with the Wisconsin Association of Consulting Engineers, and found that many local governments were interested in design/build.

QBS, from the perspective of architects and engineers, represents the preferred method of hiring a design professional for public projects. In traditional QBS, which is mandated on federal projects, the owner hires the firm most appropriate for the project based on a list of proposals, followed by interviews and price negotiations.

WACE Executive Director Carol Godiksen said the incompatibility of QBS and design/build could prove to be the biggest hurdle looming in Brandherm's search for consensus.

"That's the critical difference that's tearing everything apart because when you're dealing with, say, the GEF building, you may want a four-story office building that needs to house 1,000 people," she said. "All these other things the design/build team needs to decide, and if you are a public owner you have no say in it."

WACE took a cue from its national organization's design/build quandary in mid-1998 and handed off the issue to the QBS Committee.

"We could hear design/build rumblings in other states and we gave it to our committee, but they couldn't come to grips with it because it doesn't just involve the issue of qualification-based," Godiksen said. "That's why the architects are so adamant about 'If there is nothing broken with the current system why change?' It messes with how to get from point A to B without screwing the taxpayer."

First legislative salvo

The design/build upheaval was taking root a little closer to home than Godiksen thought. While the QBS Committee wrestled with design/build, State Sen. Gary George, D-Milwaukee, introduced the short-lived Senate Bill 426 in January 1998.

Dan Rossmiller, George's chief of staff who worked extensively on design/build legislation, said SB426 was modest in scope. It might have seemed insignificant at the time, but it turned out to be the first wave in what would develop into a tempest.

"It was late in the 1997-98 session of the Legislature that the senator introduced a bill that would have permitted Milwaukee County to utilize design/build," Rossmiller said. "As far as I understand, it was at the request of the people from the county."

SB426 didn't register as a threat with industry representatives. Babcock said he remembers the bill, but he didn't give it much thought at the time.

"If I recall, 426 wasn't even a blip on our radar screen, and you can tell by the high number that it was late in the session," he said. "I guess we should have seen something coming from that."

Whether they were directly connected, SB426 preceded a series of statements by the League of Municipalities and various townships requesting to use design/build. Those pronouncements kicked the industry's lobbying engines into gear, and it wasn't long before organizations were trying to create a unified position on design/build.

"The various municipalities and county associations said, 'If the state can, then why can't we?'" Babcock said. "In late 1998 we got together with AGC and said this is an issue that should be on our radar screen."

Just a few months later, potential design/build legislation continued to gain speed as George's office returned to SB426 with plans to reintroduce it in the next session. Rossmiller said the new bill drew interest from other legislators as well as statewide organizations.

"We were contacted by Rep. Eugene Hahn's office asking if we were going to reintroduce it, and they wanted the bill's scope expanded to include municipalities," he said. "Along with that we got material from the League of Municipalities in support of that request. Later, we got a request from Rep. Hahn to amend the threshold amounts for competitive bidding. That was in March 1999."

Hahn, R-Cambria, said his design/build push started as a grassroots campaign by a handful of his constituents.

"When I was campaigning two years ago, a village trustee wanted me to increase the bidding threshold," he said. "I talked to the League of Municipalities and they brought design/build to my attention because they had a wish list and design/build was on it. Both our bills read the same except George's bill had a $1 million threshold. That was out of my league. I was talking about a $400,000 threshold, but he didn't want to lower his."

Next Page