"Motivated by the lack of current funding, the uncertainty of future funding and the impact-to-user cost of protracted construction schedules, DOTs increasingly are using accelerated methods to deliver mobility-critical bridges," says Robert Turton, leader of HNTB's national bridge practice. So DOTs increasingly are using alternative project delivery to build needed projects. "In the past five years, the industry has seen emerge a proliferation of design-build, construction manager/general contractor, construction manager-at-risk and public-private partnerships. These alternatives can provide facilities much faster and theoretically at a better value," Turton says.
Design-build now is growing in use within the water and wastewater sectors. DBIA has worked closely with the American Water Works Association, Denver, and the Water Environment Federation, Alexandria, Va., to help these groups' members learn about design-build, says Washington. She says DBIA has been able to educate the larger utilities, about 20% of the market, about the benefits of design-build. "It is the smaller facilities, the remaining 80%, that we are trying to reach."
There have been some high-profile wins for design-build in these sectors. "Clients want creative, low-cost solutions to their problems. To do that, you need technical supremacy and the ability to offer alternative delivery methods. We can do that," says Stephen J. Hickox, CEO of CDM Smith.
An example of CDM Smith's use of design-build delivery in the infrastructure sector is its partnership with South Burlington, Vt.-based contractor PC Construction to build a $210-million main process train at the Blue Plains advanced wastewater-treatment plant for the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water). The CDM Smith/PC Construction team, working with DC Water, came up with a design incorporating Norway's Cambi thermal hydrolysis process—the first facility in the United States to use this technology, and the largest Cambi plant in the world, according to CDM Smith. The project is scheduled to be completed in January.
DC Water also awarded the CDM Smith/PC Construction design-build team a 250-million-gallon-per-day tunnel dewatering pump station and an enhanced clarification facility as part of a $4-billion upgrade. The market for design-build in water and sewer projects "will grow as clients seek to improve the efficiency, resource recovery and operation costs of treatment," says Hickox.
The biggest concern for many design-build firms is failures by inexperienced contractors using the approach. "There is a great deal of education needed to make sure design-build is done effectively, so in March we released a basic guide for design-build best practices titled 'Design-Build Done Right,'" Washington says. This is a general guide to design-build practices across all markets, but DBIA plans a series of guides applying to specific market sectors, she says.
DBIA has a huge stake in the use of best practices in design-build. "We are very brand-conscious, and we can get a black eye if contractors try and fail to execute design-build properly," says Whitaker. He says the DBIA guide lays out basic principals and procedures. "Now we are looking at more sector-specific processes. We will present some of our work at our annual meeting this October," he says.
