Bolingbrook High School can accommodate up to 3,500 students in two steel-framed 'classroom houses.'

An Illinois school district is trying out an innovative form of designer-led design-build in which the architect-engineer is partnering with the owner, providing all preliminary planning and final design and then acting as at-risk construction manager, for a single fee.

The Valley View School District in suburban Chicago is building Bolingbrook High School under the hybrid design-build arrangement with Wight & Co., Downers Grove, Ill. "We call it Wight design-build," says Bradley Paulsen, Wight’s director of K-12 educational services. "Basically it’s integrated design services and CM services at-risk, within one firm." Wight, listed 386th on ENR’s Top 500 Design Firms with $21.8 million in 2002 design revenue, provides the school district with a gamut of services that even included ushering a referendum and bond sale through the voters of Valley View School District.

But Wight’s trump card is its ability to provide a guaranteed maximum price for the $109-million, 560,000-sq-ft high school. It assures Valley View that it won’t pay a penny more unless it makes major changes to the final design documents. However, if the project is completed under budget, the savings accrue to the district. Wight’s fee is included in the GMP and would not change even if the construction costs rise or fall.

Gregg Worrell, assistant superintendent for administrative services at Valley View School District, says although Wight performs the integrated role of designer and construction manager, "it has to publicly bid all construction trades in order to comply with Illinois procurement law. The state requires the school district to award contracts from the lowest responsible bidder for each package."

The district took that approach to guarantee the final cost and save time, says Worrell, noting that Bolingbrook is in dire need of new classrooms because it is the 14th-fastest growing community in the U.S. due to a heavy influx of immigrants and increased commerce. The area around the school is dominated by housing developments, light manufacturing plants and large warehouses supporting fleets of tractor-trailers. A 24-hour neon-lit currency exchange office located amid the fast food restaurants illustrates the changing tempo in Bolingbrook’s suburban life.

Hybrid design-build will deliver school by Fall 2004.

    Wight’s form of design-build with the school district had its roots in the mid-1990s as the district was preparing to build a new elementary school and believed it needed an experienced consultant to see the project through. When the district advertised for submissions of interest for the position of district architect, about 40 Chicago area architectural firms responded. The district winnowed the list to four candidates that it invited to give formal presentations to a school district committee.

 "We were looking for someone who knew schools, knew our district and could provide a range of services to help solve a variety of facilities that we would need–not just architecture," says Worrell. Valley View evaluated the size of the firms, the variety of in-house disciplines, prior experience with school districts and key staff who would be assigned to the projects.

The committee was impressed that Wight also had the capability to provide design-build delivery although that process was not the deciding factor, says Worrell. "The members knew there were at least two school building referenda in the future and they wanted to be assured that the first school to be built would be successful before returning to the voters for the second project," he explains.

After following the state’s qualifications-based selection process, the district named the firm as its district architect. The role of district architect in Illinois is covered by the state’s Local Government Professional Services Selection Act, which says, in effect, that in an ongoing relationship for design services, a school can continue to engage the design firm for subsequent projects, says Karen Shoup, administrator of school construction at the state’s Capital Development Board in Springfield. The law allowed the district to appoint Wight as architect for the second elementary school and later the Bolingbrook High School.

 As district architect for the elementary schools, Wight developed design programs, scope, early design phases and budgets. About 30% to 40% of the way through the design phase, Wight provided a guaranteed maximum price, which the district accepted and then designated Wight as construction manager, says Worrell.

Green Houses

When the need arose to renovate and expand Romeoville High School and build a new high school in Bolingbrook, the district’s board of education endorsed hiring Wight for the two jobs. The board was influenced by Wight’s successful completion of the two 74,000-sq-ft elementary schools without the board having to approve any change orders.

Local voters passed a referendum in March 2002, with 67% of 12,400 voters opting to raise $143.2 million for the two projects. Within one week, the district sold the bonds and in 60 days broke ground for Bolingbrook. Under an Illinois state-funding program, a community can apply for a grant to build more classrooms when the number of students outstrips classroom space, says Shoup. The state Capital Development Board will parcel out a $23.5-million grant to Valley View as construction at the school reaches certain milestones, says Paulsen.

Bolingbrook’s classrooms are located in two separate two-story wings called classroom houses, each accommodating 1,750 students. Each wing is built around a courtyard so that classrooms on each side of central hallways have windows. A central spine connects the wings with a library, cafeteria and auditorium. The design called for the buildings to be framed in steel and clad in masonry except for the gyms and fieldhouse, which are enclosed with precast concrete panels.

Weather was not a factor in meeting completion date.

Wight scheduled an early start to construction. Paulsen says the firm wanted to put the two classroom wings under roofs as soon as possible. This meant that construction crews worked through Chicago’s notorious winter– "It’s not California or Florida," he emphasizes. The current goal is to enclose all of the buildings by next winter. Paulsen says that at the end of May, one wing was 59 days ahead of schedule and the other 19 days ahead. The school is scheduled for an August 2004 completion.

Leading Edge

In addition to the innovative design and unusual construction arrangement, Wight wanted the school to have a good environmental design. Wight registered the school with the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design project. The council’s stated goal is "working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work."

     A long list of sustainable design elements makes Bolingbrook a candidate for certification and Wight worked several ideas into the site design, says Michael Lopez, design project manager. "To prevent pollutants in stormwater runoff on the parking lots, we applied a bioswale technique by creating landscaped islands in the lots so that plants in the islands filter the pollutants," he says. And to prevent sediment from running into public storm sewers, the designers installed fabrics to collect erosion and sediment where water would drain along the perimeter of the site.

In its environmentally active role, Wight also insisted that contractors obtain 20% of all building materials from local sources and keep all deliveries to within a 500-mile radius in order to reduce transportation costs and fuel consumption. We also specified materials "that emit low emissions harmful to the environment," says Lopez. "These include paints, sealants, adhesives, carpets, plywood and strandboard." The architect captured daylight in 90% of the school’s classrooms and corridors and incorporated aspects of the environmental designs into the school curriculum, such as using solar panels to demonstrate to students how they affect energy consumption.

Worrell, whose professional concern is delivering education and controlling budgets, saved additional school funds by implementing an owner-controlled insurance policy for the project. He notes that each subcontractor’s bid included its insurance cost. The school district deducted those costs from its payments for work done and aggregated the savings into a single policy that covers general liability and workers’ compensation. The district pays into a loss fund and the loss fund pays up to $250,000 on each incident. Anything over $250,000 is paid by the insurance carrier that administers the program.

 "The benefit is that we know every sub has a policy and there will be no acrimonious debating when one sues another," says Worrell. Paulsen notes that it also improves jobsite safety. "At the end of the job, any money left in the loss fund will be returned to the district," says Worrell.

No Going Back

While not unique, the innovative insurance arrangement is in keeping with the unconventional approach the district took with design-build delivery. Looking back on the process, Paulsen says, "Wight’s hybrid design-build has been modeled for public agencies in the state of Illinois and our clients that have used it don’t go back to traditional methods of project delivery. In addition, Bolingbrook’s rationale for using it is that the project is led by a design group experienced with schools and not controlled by a contractor."

"We realized the same benefits as a conventional design-build program [and] our method complies with the state of Illinois’ professional services selection and public bidding requirements for construction contracts," says Worrell.

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