The U.S. construction boom has paid dividends for almost all segments of the construction industry and firms providing construction management services on a fee-only basis are no exception. As owners scramble to find qualified people to do their projects while attempting to shield themselves from explosive materials and labor price changes, they are finding an ever increasing need for professional management services. “There is so much work out there that whoever has the people at the right time will get the job,” jokes Steve Margaroni, vice president of construction management services for Psomas. But, he cautions that many clients are
The construction process in the past couple years has been fraught with risk for owners and contractors. Materials and labor price escalation has sent shock waves through the industry. This has led owners to look for new means of project delivery to manage, if not transfer, risk. And many are turning to construction management on an at-risk basis. However, CM-at-risk doesn’t mean that CM firms are willing to shoulder unreasonable risks. “Our model is fairly consistent,” says Mark LaVoy, executive vice president and South region manager for Hunt Construction Group. He says that requiring a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) early
Buying Spaulding & Slye gives JLL base in Boston and residential work. (Rendering courtesy of Spaulding & Slye/Jones Lang LaSalle) Even with a balance sheet that screams success, a share value that hit an all-time high in April, and rosy predictions of a bright future, Colin Dyer, president and CEO of Chicago-based global real estate and project management megafirm Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. (JLL), still needs reassurance. There is, of course, JLL’s first appearance in 2006 on Forbes magazine’s prestigious Platinum 400 list for high-performing public firms, and its selection by major real estate client Procter & Gamble as External
Too busy. Don’t have time. Software is not ready or difficult. Client is not willing to pay for it. Can’t convince partners or decision makers. Just bought the software. These are the reasons that some architects gave for not using 3D or building information modeling, in a recent survey by the American Institute of Architects-Associated General Contractors joint committee BIM survey. Of the survey’s 1,266 respondents, 26% said they were not using BIM. Some of the reasons: 197 said owners were not requesting it; 116 said they had no expertise; 101 said it was too expensive; and 109 said they
Dana K. Smith sees building information models evolving without a foundation. “If we are going to have long-term and sustainable building information models, we need a standard,” says Smith, chair of the National BIM Standard project committee of the National Institute of Standards & Technology. The committee, which began work last August, is on schedule to publish the first version of the standard by year-end. A draft is expected to be out this month. Related Links: Team Members Seek Ways Out of the Building Modeling Haze 74% of Architects Use Some Level Of 3D Digital Modeling, Says Survey A basic
Pilot Job. Federal courthouse building information modeling is called positive and negative. (Image courtesy of H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture LLC) “We’re at the kick-off meeting for a great project. All the players are present. The surfaces of the room are filled with digital screens, caves, images (think Tom Cruise...Minority Report). The group can see and access all project data compiled to date to get a jump-start. We begin to use BIM on day one, by capturing goals and expectations, developing and validating program and scope. We gut-check the budget and even begin to generate project and systems options in 3D,
When executives want the ultimate in secure communications, they close the door, pull out a pen, write key words on a scrap of paper and expose it to the other party. Then they destroy the paper. That’s a tough level of protection for today’s high-tech security wizards to rise to. But they are making progress in that direction. Every day, construction firms are exposed to enormous risk by entrusting operations to electronic data and transmitting it to others. The alternative—paper-based exchange—is becoming less and less practical when measured against the speed, reliability and storage efficiency of electronic data. But while
Plug �n� Play? Repowering off-road vehicles takes months of research to engineer. On May 1, the thick morning fog began to lift off the San Fernando Valley, leaving a smoggy haze in its place. Two mechanics dressed in jeans and tee-shirts were preparing to drop a new 15-liter diesel engine into a 30-year-old scraping machine. Repowering old, polluting construction machinery is becoming a common practice in California as air quality districts place local restrictions on projects. One thing about this scene was unusual, though. The operation was taking place not in a maintenance shop, but in the middle of a
Click here to view firm rankings>> Complete Report - The entire Top 400 Contractors list, with market-segment charts and a special supplement showing subsidiaries, is available in an electronic format. Click here for more information. For many, if not most, large general contractors, this is a time like few have ever seen. The economy is strong, the markets vibrant, and there is more than enough work to go around in most major markets and geographic regions. What soft spots that can be found are not catastrophic. And there is little evidence of a major downturn in the immediate future. This
Spirit of Collaboration. Architect Libeskind (left), client Sharp support cooperation, no confrontation, on tough job. (Images courtesy of Studio Daniel Libeskind LLC, left, DAM, top center, and M.A. Mortenson Co., right) Another starchitect. Another unfathomable form. Another potential money sinkhole. On the surface, architect Daniel Libeskind's Denver Art Museum addition, a 146,000-sq-ft titanium-skinned "geode," had all the ingredients for disaster. Except in the eyes of M.A. Mortenson Co., which had recently cut its teethor been through the meat grinderon the monarch of all description-defying U.S. architectural icons, Los Angeles' Walt Disney Concert Hall. Instead of running scared, Mortenson salivated at
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