in 2015 — the transit program was reignited late last year when GLX Constructors, a Flour-led consortium that includes Middlesex Corp., Herzog, Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Inc., and STV, won the bid with a $1.08 billion proposal. Coming in well below the cost ceiling of $1.3 billion, GLX was able to re-include Green Line features such as station canopies, public art, and a portion of walking and cycling trails along the tracks, according to accounts published in The Boston Globe. That Flour and Balfour Beatty, two of the top design-build firms in the nation, would be spearheading a marquee project in a marquee market should come as no surprise. Likewise, CH2M and CDM Smith are part of the joint venture on the Northeast Water Purification Plant in Houston, and Kiewet Corp. subsidiary Kiewit Infrastructure West Co., led the joint venture on the $583 million Carlsbad Desalination Plant in California. In Burns & McDonnell’s own back yard sits Black & Veatch, a super-firm in its own right. But that’s the playing field for design-build, and Burns & McDonnell is comfortable with the compe- tition and the stakes. “We compete against those guys all the time,” Schaefer said. “You win some and you lose some. It’s all about relationships. You have to understand the people who are going to be in the room [when you propose] and know what their wants and needs are.” Schaefer concedes that there are plenty of owners out there who just don’t want to give design-build a try. But there are plenty who do, and when they take the plunge, the results are increasingly predictable. “Once they do it once, they want to do it again,” Schaefer said. The Burns & McDonnell headquarters expansion is crammed with amenities and, according to Brittney Swartz, a landscape architect for
the expansion project, the design-build delivery model made it possible to put the bells and whistles into the final product: A 20,000-square- foot child care center, crucial as the firm looks to recruit more women, a coffee shop, a 250-seat auditorium, a 2,500-square-foot rooftop event space, and a full-service pharmacy are the headliners.
How does all this get coordinated during an aggressive construction schedule that came in under two years? Constant communication and education among the various business units involved, Swartz said. The building also has 60 conference rooms, reclaimed white marble from the abandoned Beth Shalom temple formerly on the site, hack- berry wood veneers and ceiling panels, 100-percent LED lighting, 300 tons of recycled steel and metal, a fully automated blind system, and electric vehicle charging stations. The facility was designed to accom- modate the Phase Two expansion, and both buildings can be converted for another tenant should Burns & McDonnell ever move. In the end, Burns & McDonnell got everything it wanted out of the building. “There are opportunities that come up through the process, and because we’re a [design-build] team, it’s easier to work it in,” said Swartz. RICHARD MASSEY is director of newsletters and special publications at Zweig Group and editor of The Zweig Letter. He can be reached at rmassey@ zwieiggroup.com.
Northeast Water Purification Plant
The City of Houston’s Northeast Water Purification Plant in Humble, Texas, is the nation’s largest design-build project. The $1.4 billion project led by Houston Waterworks Team, a design-build joint venture between CDM Smith and CH2M, will increase treatment capacity from 80 million gallons per day (mgd) to 400 mgd by 2024. The project comprises pumping and conveyance of water from Lake Houston; an intake pump station; twin, 108-inch transmission mains; pre- and post-treatment chemical addition; ozone treatment; filtration; finished water storage tanks; and a high-service pumping station.
The Northeast Water Purification Plant in Houston is currently the largest design-build project in the United States.
Source: City of Houston
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csengineermag.com
june 2018
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