Our Process

Competition is not open, but limited to those GCs who are preselected by the owner and invited to bid.  The GC with the lowest bid is generally awarded the contract. Commonly used for private or quasi-private projects.

Competition among GCs is limited to those who are preselected by tthe owner.  Negotiations are conducted early during the design phase with one GC at a time.  The GC who provides the best value for the money is awarded the contract. Commonly used for private or quasi-private projects.

The owner hires a construction manager (CM) as his or her agent (instead of the architect), who provides design-phase assistance to the architect and also performs several functions of the GC, such as construction scheduling, coordination and site safety. There is no GC in this method, and the work is awarded to several subcontractors (called prime contractors) under contracts with the owner.  The CM is paid a fee and carries no financial risk or legal responsibility for the prime contractors' work. Commonly used for projects when the owner is experienced in contract administration.

In this method, the CM performs two sequential roles:  1) the CM works as the owner's representative and provides design-phase assistance to the architect and is paid a fee, or 2) the CM functions as the GC after the completion of the design phase, and is compensated under a conventional owner-contractor agreement with all attendant risk and liability (hence the CM is called CMAR).  The CMAR obtains competitive bids from subcontractors, as in a DBB method. Commonly used for both private and public projects.

In all previous, there is a lack of collaborative relationship between the design and construction teams - a lack that is addressed in this method because both design and construction work are awarded to one firm, called a design-build firm. The method generally saves time and cost to the owner, but to be successful, the owner's program must be precisely defined at the beginning of the project.  Used for both private and public projects.

This method, which is still evolving, differs substantially from all other methods.  It requires complete collaboration among th eowner, architect and th GC in a zaro-blame and zero-litigation environment.  For successful integrated delivery, a virtual model of the project is constructed (using building information modeling - BIM) during the design phase with collaboration from all parties - owner, architect, consultants, GC, subcontractors, fabricators, material suppliers, and so on.