A Traditional Approach for Owners with Typical Project Requirements

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In this delivery model, the owner contracts separately with the designer to develop the Bid Documents, and then the owner and designer solicit bids for the work, typically from general contractors. The owner selects the contractor by one of two methods: 1. Hard (low) Bid; or 2. Selected or Negotiated Bid. The owner has very little input into the process or selection of specialty contractors or vendors. The accounting system is almost always a “closed book” system for the project.

Considerations and Advantages

• Design-Bid-Build project delivery has few clear advantages over other approaches. Two exceptions are cases in which the owner is legally obligated to contract for services utilizing this method, and cases in which the owner is very experienced, skilled, and adept at contracting for construction services Design-Bid-Build delivery.
• This form of project delivery relies very heavily on the owner providing a clear and concise scope of work for the project to the designers, who in turn develop well-documented and tightly coordinated construction documents for the bidding contractors.
• The Design-Bid-Build form of project delivery is most successful when the project team demonstrates excellent communication skills and well-coordinated contract documents. This form of delivery also benefits from a pre-qualified, select list of bidding contractors who are familiar with the type of work, and who all possess high levels of experience with the type of construction required.
• The owner assumes greater risk with this form of project delivery, especially when it involves a large pool of bidding contractors.

To learn more about the Design-Bid-Build process, please contact us.