I been telling ya'll....this is the best thing that can happen for the golf design business and the sooner the better....
Read the Golf Course Industry article:
http://www.golfcourseindustry.com/gci-062811-bob-lohmann-design-build.aspx?List_id=29Design-build again rears its controversial head
For nearly three decades, if the golf development and renovation fields have dealt with a more controversial subject than “design-build,” GCI columnist Bob Lohmann doesn't know what it would be. But just as the downturn has affected nearly everything we thought we knew about the golf business, so has it changed the way superintendents, course operators, architects and contractors view the design-build option.
BOB LOHMANN
June 28, 2011
For most of the last 30 years, if the golf development and renovation fields have dealt with a more controversial subject than “design-build,” I don’t know what it would be. But just as the current downturn has affected nearly everything we thought we knew about the golf business, so has it changed the way superintendents, course operators, architects and contractors view the design-build option.
Used to be that design-build — the entrusting of both course (re)design and (re)construction to a single entity— was almost taboo. That’s how unpopular and inconceivable it was. I know this first-hand because my company has, since 1984, included a course architecture division (Lohmann Golf Designs) and a course construction division, Golf Creations, founded in 1988.
The conventional wisdom held that a client employed an architect to design, but also to keep an eye on the contractor; the client employed the contractor to do construction, but also to keep any eye on the architect. According to this theory, design-build was almost an open invitation for the single entity to cut corners on quality and inflate costs.
Now, I’ve never happened to buy into this thinking. I’m clearly biased, but I’d argue that I’m in a unique position to see the advantages and disadvantages to the design-build scenario. More on that later.
What’s interesting, and more relevant to the present day, is the shift we’ve seen in how design-build is viewed. For years we scrupulously kept Lohmann Golf Design (LGD) jobs separate from Golf Creations jobs. Our design work was put out to bid and, on the rare occasions that Golf Creations bid on the construction, we did so along with all the other usual suspects under the same rules and guidelines — and I can’t tell you how many jobs we didn’t get because of Golf Creations’ relationship to LGD. That was how the game was played. We expected it and lived with it because, at that time, there were plenty of other construction jobs to bid upon — jobs where we had no hand in the design.
Well, lo and behold, hardly any new courses are being built in 2011, and renovation jobs are few and far between. Those renovation projects that ARE put out to bid today are both smaller (in size and cost), spread over longer periods — and they are more hotly contested at bid. Plus, there’s a misperception out there that “contractors are hungry; they’ll do it cheap.” The problem is, the cost of labor, fuel and materials isn’t going down and neither are overall prices. Sure, contractor’s profit margins are shrinking, but not enough to counter the other increases. And when margins shrink it generally has a major impact on quality, especially on longer projects.
Suddenly, as all these factors take hold, the clear efficiencies of design-build are no longer taboo. They’re even sort of attractive.
Let me talk about one job where we have handled both design and construction. I don’t offer it as any sort of model project. But it does illustrate what’s changing in the business, and why. We’re working at Lake Carroll Golf Course in Lanark, Illinois (near Galena). We did the original master plan years ago, and originally it was to be tackled over 3-5 years, in big chunks.
“Now what’s happened, as a result of the industry downturn and our inability to sell lots, we’ve been nipping at it in little pieces,” says Tim Throop, the superintendent at Lake Carroll. “And the phases are getting smaller. We did all the green surrounds last summer, on the front nine. We’ll do them on 3 to 4 holes this year because there isn’t enough money.”
We did this project as a design-build, meaning we took the LGD-derived master plan and Golf Creations handled construction. On the first project we did the driving range, built a brand-new par-3 and some new tee complexes. The second project included renovating the 15th green, plus green surrounds and bunkers on the front nine.
“I would say the first project went real well,” said Jason Hill, the head professional at Lake Carroll. “We’re not a private club, but we have a Board [of Directors]. The Board changes each year and they have different ideas. The second year we had a couple members that pushed for maybe doing it another way, but we showed them the advantages of design-build and that’s the way we’ve gone forward. I don’t know that I’d do it another way. In fact, we put up a pretty good fight to avoid going the traditional design/bid route.”
Like I said, I’m biased. So I’ll let Jason and Tim make the case.
“It’s pretty simple because you have the guys who designed it right there to do the change, without the change order,” Jason said. “Money-wise, those delays can hurt, and you have to consider all the expenses related to having the architect on site. We got the drawings right up front and there were a lot of changes along the way. But we saved a substantial amount, a minimum of 10-15 percent, just in the drawing phase.”
Every job is different, of course. Things that work over here, won’t work over there. But design-build almost necessarily invites flexibility. As part of the cost-consciousness we were asked to bring to the Lake Carroll project, we farmed a lot of our construction work back to the client.
“We assumed some responsibilities: They’d give us the scope and we’d do the work,” Tim said. “When we renovated the traps, we removed all the sand, the whole crew, superintendent and mechanics. The roto-tilling — instead of paying a guy to do that, we have salary guys do it.”
And let’s be honest: There is risk to the piecemeal approach. These little bits are easier to achieve and can be achieved more efficiently under design-build, but it’s something of a trap. Bunkers are a good example. Once you start doing them, you have to keep going — you can’t build them 5 years apart. You get inconsistencies in materials from year to year sometimes, and more so over multiple years. If you wait too long, use different materials, and have bunkers of widely varying age, they will look and perform very different from one to the other – which is generally why they were being renovated in the first place!
But you can’t fight these larger forces. The jobs are getting smaller and under the right circumstances, design-build makes sense. I’ll give Jason the last word on this approach: “We’d recommend it to anybody else. We’re not plugging Lohmann, but they came up with the best master plan of the different companies we talked to, and delivered the best product — better than we thought we’d get. If it’s not a good company, design-build isn’t going to work, but then neither will traditional design/bid.”
One last word from me, on bidding. We just bid, solely as a contractor, on a public course renovation (it’s actually park district-owned). The architect attached to the project estimated construction costs at $1.8 million. The lowest bid that came in was $2.5 million.
This column is supposed to be about communication. So, what does that situation communicate to us?
First, that it is difficult for architects to keep a handle on pricing these days, especially given the volatility of the market, union influences, etc. It’s no different than contractors giving costs without a design — so much can be lost in the interpretation. However, in my view, anyone who handles design-build projects has an inherent understanding of these dynamics and a “built-in” advantage over someone who doesn’t.
Design-build is not the answer to everything. Far from it. But as jobs are spread further over time, and the relationships between architect, contractor and client get longer and longer, it’s definitely something to think about.