When the federal stimulus was rushed into law amid the frozen markets of early 2009, Connecticut was ill-prepared to act with its slow-moving processes for approving projects in place.
Builders can expect a thaw in any new opportunities, promises Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
“Once I sign this bill, Connecticut will join 46 other states that have implemented ”˜design build,”™ making us more competitive in the quest for federal money,” Malloy said. “But more importantly, this bill will give us the ability to make long overdue investments in our infrastructure, all while lowering the cost and improving the quality of construction projects.”
Under a bill dubbed “design-build,” state and municipal agencies can consolidate design and construction bids, rather than obtaining a completed design before putting the project out to bid among builders.
Design-build is used extensively by agencies elsewhere in a range of applications. Just last month, Norwalk-based Emcor Group Inc. won a design-build contract for a major electrical system upgrade at U.S. Coast Guard”™s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation has put highway projects out to bid under the traditional design-bid-build method. The bill, which has been passed by the state legislature, authorizes the DOT commissioner to designate that highway projects be built using either a construction-manager-at-risk (CMAR) contract with a guaranteed maximum price or a design-build contract, as alternatives to the design-bid-build process.
Under the CMAR model, an owner contracts with a single construction manager who works with the designer and then provides labor, materials and project management during construction
“I quite frankly was surprised coming into Connecticut ”¦ that this wasn”™t a tool in the DOT”™s toolbox, because I”™ve been used to it for so long in my career in transportation,” said James Redeker, DOT commissioner, in testimony earlier this year. “In this latest round (of federal grants), I was unable to actually have a construction project in the right ballpark ready to go, because they don”™t have the design backlog of projects ready to go. But, frankly, if I had design-build, I could have gotten additional money to the state of Connecticut.”
With nearly 200 people who have taken early or scheduled retirement from DOT, Redeker said the department has a slim backlog of projects, which he hopes the bill will bolster.
“We finished the last two years of incredibly aggressive funding because we got a lot of stimulus dollars,” Redeker said. “We took those and applied them to the projects that were ready to go, so we”™re actually at a place today where we have very little if any backlog of projects ready to go from a design point of view.”
Redeker added that design-build would improve Connecticut DOT”™s ability to chase down any new federal funding that might become available on a competitive basis.
“In the long run, design-build I think gives us an opportunity to pick selective projects that may be particularly difficult or interesting ”“ that need innovation, where we want to try something new, where we want to set a price and make sure that there”™s some risk being taken on by the contracting community, so that we can actually deliver something that way,” Redeker said.
