Succeed in the Washington, D.C., Market Despite Unique Design-build Challenges
The aesthetics of Washington, D.C., are vigorously preserved in new buildings through vital regulatory oversight. This oversight is especially evident when funded through Department of Defense’s (DoD) Military Construction (MILCON) program, which flips the most important design-build (DB) methods upside down.
In the Design-Build Institute of America’s DB Done Right approach, the government-owner would provide requirements in the form of a building RFP, contractors would submit a design proposal to the owner, a contract would be awarded and a design would be approved—resulting in the construction of a new building.
But in Washington, D.C., MILCON’s design-build reality is substantially more involved. In that region, contractors have found that what works best is to get a project conceptually designed first, then present it to multiple regulatory agencies, incorporate their feedback (possibly repeatedly), re-present the design, acquire preliminary approval and finally issue a building RFP. This is counter to design-build’s best practices, which often seek simplicity in the process to afford the clients the most creative solutions to their projects. In the Washington, D.C., fashion, MILCON-funded projects have several variables that do not allow government-owners to follow design-build’s tried and true best practices.
Like many private and public organizations, the federal government allocates project funding years in advance. Unlike privately funded ventures, the federal government also often places an expiration date on funding they receive each year. The expiration date places pressure on the government and, in turn, places extraordinary pressure on the agencies to execute the project—which forces contractors to frontload steps not often taken pre-RFP.
In general, construction management consultants are required to know specific localized constraints that may impact scope, schedule and cost; though, in most cities, such constraints are predictable and routine. D.C.’s constraints are far more extensive than the average city owing to those government entities responsible for preserving the city’s architectural order. In D.C.’s MILCON reality, the localized constraints can lead to schedule overruns as the government projects go through a multi-layered approval and revision process often resulting in costly change orders.
Navigate D.C.’s Process
By working with those outside regulatory agencies early and often during the project’s planning phase, the design-build process can move along more efficiently and the risk for design changes post-award can be significantly reduced. In this environment, the design-build approach’s biggest value is to be creative outside of the building architecture by including steps such as construction phasing, means and methods, scheduling, and material selection.
It is difficult when the government-owner is unable to focus solely on the building requirements instead of the conceptual design because the less prescriptive the government can be the more creative the bidders will be. But without prior regulatory consent, the contractor’s design would be subject to change further into the process, adding costly change orders, delays and pushing up against and/or past the funding’s expiration date.
While the maximum benefit of design-build is not achieved in D.C.’s MILCON projects, the risk of cost overruns due to inherent design changes by regulatory agencies is significantly reduced (if not completely erased) in this process. This aspect of the project is critical when additional funding simply cannot be added to the project without it being authorized by, oh, just Congress. Therefore, under D.C.’s local constraints, it is more beneficial for the project to use a hybrid model of design-build and design-bid-build.
With enough experience in this market, contractors can begin to predict certain steps that allow them to forecast realistic costs and scheduling milestones to meet the funding’s expiration date. In turn, this allows contractors to earn additional contract awards since they have proven the ability to execute projects efficiently and effectively, in true design-build fashion.
