Construction Law

DBIA RECOMMENDS CHANGES TO STATE DESIGN BUILD STATUTES

By John P. Ahlers

The Design Build Institute of American, Northwest Region, is a membership organization founded to advocate and advance single source project delivery systems within the design and construction industry. Design build is a method of project deliver that combines the design and construction functions and vest single-point responsibility for those functions in one entity: the design builder. Traditional design-build-bid methods require that the public entity manage two separate contracts: one with the designer and one with the contractor. With the design-build delivery method, the public entity enters into a single contract with a design builder and then utilizes an integrated team to both design and construction the project. Washington statutes addressing design build are set forth at RCW 39.10. et seq. DBIA has recommended three (3) changes be made to the present Washington statute:

1. Revise the statute to allow design build certified agencies to yearly award up to five (5) design build projects with a total project cost between $2 million and $10 million without seeking Budget Review Committee (all agencies wishing to utilize pilot design build projects must apply to the Capital Project Advisory Review Board's Project Review Committee (PRC)).

2. Change the statute criteria which DBIA contends is too restrictive to a threshold requirement that design build be used on project where there is a cost, schedule or performance benefit to the public.

3. Encourage the utilization of small and or disadvantaged businesses in design build procurement.

Full post as published by Construction Law Blog on November 02, 2010 (boomark / email).