A giant California community college district is making a huge investment in design-build. According to Larry Eisenberg, executive director, Facilities Planning & Development, Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD), "At LACCD, with the successful passage of a $3.5 billion bond measure in November of 2008, 50 new buildings will be built over the next three years. LACCD has committed to build at least 30 of these buildings using the design-build method. To date, six of the 30 projects have been awarded, with many more to come in the near future." LACCD is the nation's largest community college district, with nine campuses providing services to about 200,000 students.
Eisenberg says, "At LACCD the design-build delivery alternative is proving to be popular and is allowing projects to be built quicker and well below the cost of other projects using the traditional design-bid-build approach." But until recently, this was not possible. California community colleges had been restricted in their ability to deliver capital projects because state law required use of the design-bid-build project delivery method exclusively. This limitation was kept in place by mistaken fears on the part of some stakeholders in the AEC industry that anything but design-bid-build would lead to favoritism, poorly delivered projects and less value for the taxpayer. However, AB 1000 (Simitian) was passed in 2002, giving three community college districts the ability to use the design-build procurement method under a pilot program. As with other California design-build legislation, a reporting requirement on the success or failure of the program was mandated.
LACCD had initial success with the first two projects under the pilot programs. According to Eisenberg, "The result was that both projects finished well under budget and on schedule. The reaction at each college to the finished projects was highly satisfactory. The projects proved the ability of the design-build process to deliver buildings at an accelerated pace and well under budget for the project, and better yet under the average cost for all projects being built across the very large LACCD building program that was using the design-bid-build method exclusively." Eisenberg continues, "A hum-drum campus was transformed seemingly overnight to a state-of-the-art institution of higher education with a uniform modern upscale look."
Based on the success of LACCD's pilot program and other California community college successes, the Legislature passed SB 614 (Simitian) in 2007 that extended design-build authority to all 108 California community colleges and lowered the project minimum value from $10 million to $2.5 million. In cooperation with DBIA Western Pacific Region, a number of training sessions have been held for community colleges to train administrators and their staff in the design-build methodology. Eisenberg says, "California community colleges only recently gained the ability to do design-build for projects in excess of $2.5 million. As a result, current administrators and facilities directors have not had much, if any, experience doing design-build unless they brought it from another job experience. The result is that we have a significant need to educate community college administrators in the design-build technique or the community colleges need to hire people who have this experience."
California is moving forward with design-build authority in other areas as well. AB 642 (Wolk) authorized design-build for all cities in the state in 2008. SB 1699 (Wiggins) provided the Sonoma Valley Health Care District with design-build authority in 2009, and another bill introduced this year will extend that authority to all health care districts in the state if passed. In addition, this year as a part of the California budget approval process, design-build was approved for transportation projects for the first time in the state's history.
About the author: Robert J. Hartung, a DBIA Design-Build Professional¨, is an industry representative on the AIACC Definitions Committee and the AIA IPD Guide Committee. As a part of his distinguished career, Hartung has been a practitioner in many design-build projects, including the Department of Defense, K-12, state universities, local governments and the private sector for more than 20 years. He may be contacted at adsllc@cox.net.