Where, oh where?

Would-be, public-sector design/build customers say they wouldn't
rush to limited bidding

By Candace Doyle - Associate Editor

Not only is design/build a hard-to-define concept, it's tough to quantify. Who's doing it? Everyone, it seems. How much of it are they doing? No one seems to know.

PaulHoffman President Hoffman Corp.

A 1999 nationwide design/build survey conducted by Zweig White & Associates Inc. indicates that most of the 96 firms polled have used design/build for years and expect its use to increase. Zweig White & Associates is a Natick, Mass.-based consulting firm for the architectural, engineering, planning and environmental industries.

The survey indicates that 25 percent of firms reporting that at least 10 percent of their work is design/build have been using the delivery system since at least 1983.

The survey also indicates that most firms doing design/build, 31 percent, are found in the North Central region. The region is a grouping of 12 states that includes Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.

Dana Weinstein, managing editor of the survey, said it's safe to deduce that more design/build work is being done in that region than in other areas of the country. The trouble is, Wein-stein said, there are no statistics on design/build by state.

That makes quantifying design/ build work both difficult and frustrating for those with a need to know, like John Mielke, director of government relations for the Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin: "That's one of the questions we've tried to resolve with regard to the design/build debate."

Or like William Babcock, executive director of the Wisconsin Society of the American Institute of Architects: "We've been trying to pull together some material on what's going on with other states. We all want to know what's going on in other states."

Why? To know what obstacles lie in design/build's path - and how high the jump to clear them, he said. Babcock said he asked AIA chapters in July for quantifiable data on design/build. So far, replies he's received lead him to conclude that design/build is "not widely used" for public jobs.

"With feedback I've gotten, it's oftentimes not allowed and oftentimes not used," he said. "It's not a great trend that's sweeping across the country."

Bob Barker, executive vice president of Associated General Contractors of Wisconsin and a member of DBIA, agreed, again adding that his conclusion is not based on hard-and-fast figures.

"As far as the volume amount of work, I really don't have anything on that," he said. "From a public standpoint, it's still not widely accepted, anywhere. On the private side, that would be tough. There are so many projects you don't even know about."

'Fertile ground'

Paul Hoffman, president of the Hoffman Corp., said although he can't quote statistics, he's certain that Wisconsin is "fertile ground" for design/build in the public sector and that it's used on private jobs "more than infrequently."

"As I travel around the country, our state probably has more design/build than other states," Hoff-man said. "That's more of a gut instinct and how I feel."

Jim Boullion, director of government affairs for the Associated General Contractors of Wisconsin, surmised that design/build is gaining in popularity, here and nationwide. But again, there's no real way of knowing as data is elusive.

"Anecdotally, it seems people have been telling me it's grown," he said. "I would say we're not behind as far as construction trends. We have some individual contractors who are on the cutting edge of design/build creatively. (But) there's no way to know. It's not something we track as an association."

Babcock and Jim Broaddus, president of the Design-Build Institute of America, don't hold the view that Wisconsin is a lead player in the design/build game.

"I know it's been an issue in Wisconsin," Babcock said. "It's an issue - I guess it's one of the biggest ones. It seems like we're about where most states are. Maybe we've talked about it more."

And Broaddus observed that, if legislation was an indicator, Wisconsin would likely not lead the pack in terms of public jobs delivered through design/build.

"It's hard to generalize about it," he said. "The last statistics I saw, 28 states could use design/build pretty openly. There were 14 states where it was very restrictive."

In the remaining eight states, the use of design/build for public jobs was nearly "impossible," the category in which Broaddus placed Wisconsin. And that, to Broaddus, is clearly a mistake.

"If a state is going to remain competitive with the other states in the Union, they need to knock down the barriers to design/build and other delivery methods," he said.

Private matter

As difficult as it is to gauge the extent of design/build's use in public jobs, it's no easier measuring its volume in the private sector.

"That's a tough thing to compile because when you get a building permit, you don't have to tell what the process is," Babcock said.

Richard Hayes, director of professional practice at the American Institute of Architects in Washington, D.C., said that although measuring design/build as a system is difficult at best, 34 percent of member firms nonetheless say it's an issue.

"Whether or not that means they are actually performing design/build is not clear," said Hayes. Hayes echoed Broaddus' concern about legislation restricting the use of design/build for public jobs. But Hayes predicted the legislative tide would turn: By the year 2005, he expects that 50 percent of all government projects will be design/build, compared to 25 percent now.

"It means there's a growing percentage of projects that are being delivered design/build across the country," he said.

Of those projects that are design/build, Hayes cited Zweig White data showing most, 55 percent, are contractor-led. That's followed by a design/build team, 25 percent; a designer or engineer, 12 percent; and a joint venture created for the purpose of completing the project, 8 percent.

Jim Crockett, associate editor of the DBIA's Design/Build Magazine, estimated that 33 percent of all jobs are design/build. That's quite a leap since 1985, when the association publication estimated only 5 percent of jobs used that method.

"It's really come more to the forefront in the past four or five years," he said. "On the public side, it's starting to creep over."

But again, that's an estimate and as unfounded as the theory Carol Godiksen, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of Consulting Engineers, hears frequently: "I talk to some of my members and they say only the large firms are doing it."

That widely held belief was shattered for Godiksen in a 1999 Business Trends Survey conducted by the American Consulting Engineers Council.

That survey reported that 51.9 percent of responding firms worked on a design/build project in 1998, up from 49.1 percent in 1997. But of the firms responding, 85 percent had 15 or fewer employees.

"Everyone I talked to has said, 'You can't trust those figures' or 'You can' t trust those,'" she said. "We haven't done any hard searching to figure out what percentage of jobs are design/build. I would say nothing is reliable."