Not so “alternative” anymore is one way to describe the rise of alternative project delivery. Revenue for construction management-at-risk and design-build delivery reached all-time highs before COVID-19 plagued the market. But this year’s company rankings tell a more complicated story about alternative project delivery during a crisis.
Over the last 10 years, before the pandemic, alternative project delivery firms reaped the rewards of a rapidly expanding construction market—cementing the boom that many firms reported in their ENR Top List surveys. Total revenue for construction management-at-risk (CMAR) projects peaked in 2019 at $151.92 billion before the virus took hold last year and brought it down slightly to $148.3 billion.