Gilbert, Ariz., is the nation’s fastest growing municipality, adding 1,000 new residents monthly. To meet critical infrastructure needs, the town turned to a variety of alternative project delivery methods in its five-year, $622-million capital improvement program. In doing so it has helped pioneer the use of design-build delivery in the state.

What was once just a rail siding on William "Bobby" Gilbert’s property and then a sleepy farming community located about 22 miles southeast of downtown Phoenix, has been transformed into a booming exurb thanks to annexing 53 square miles of surrounding land in the 1970’s. Gilbert has doubled its population every five years since 1980 yet is still incorporated as a town, making it the only town in the U.S. with over 100,000 people.

But there are growing pains. Town officials have turned to alternative project delivery methods such as design-build in order to fast-track new roads, fire stations, schools, parks and water reservoirs to meet burgeoning demand. Gilbert is now more than halfway into a 350-project capital improvement program. The rolling program is evaluated annually and renewed every five-years, funded by a combination of permit fees, water connection charges, general obligation bonds and private developer contributions.

While anticipating its infrastructure needs, the town lacked the needed manpower and expertise to run a large construction program. In January 2003, it issued a request for proposals for a program manager. Three months later, the town hired Phoenix-based PinnacleOne under a lump-sum, annually renewable contract. It is valued at 1.25% of the program’s total cost, based on a formula of personnel and manhours, or about $1 million annually. It is money well spent, say officials.

After securing the contract award, PinnacleOne spent the first 90 days validating projects, costs and schedules, while re-sequencing the program to prevent any conflicts and overlaps, says Daniel B. McCausland, PinnacleOne’s regional director. It enabled the firm to identify and prioritize time-sensitive issues such as utility relocation, right-of-way and siting that potentially could delay projects. PinnacleOne next set about standardizing procurement procedures, progress payments, documents, contracts and management among the town’s nine divisions.

Municipal agencies often have established processes in place, something they usually are reluctant to change. Yet PinnacleOne encountered surprisingly little resistance to implementing uniform measures and methods, due primarily to the town’s rapid growth and shared sense of cooperation. The firm even standardized public information meetings as well as advertising and mailing notices. "When all the information is clarified and people are informed, it’s surprising how little resistance you face when a new project is introduced in a neighborhood," says McCausland.

After three years hard work, Gilbert has completed roughly $250-million of projects ranging from streets and municipal buildings to stormwater and recreation facilities. The program has 80 to 100 projects under way at any given time, and it currently is running about 2.5% under budget. To deliver the goods, the town draws upon a plethora of procurement tools to meet its different needs. It uses job-order contracting for traffic signals, for instance, and construction manager at-risk for streets and roads.

Reserviors and pumps are a crtical part of Gilbert's development.

"Design-build has proved one of the fastest methods, thus far saving 25% to 30% in time over traditional design-bid-build delivery, while also creating single source responsibility", says Paul A. Mood, Gilbert’s capital projects administrator. Although the town has a small oversight staff, its manpower can swell and shrink as needed through PinnacleOne. It currently has six full-time program positions including onsite project managers, technical support and scheduling and estimating backup. Town officials also have recruited PinnacleOne to serve as construction manager on individual projects under a separate contract.

Design-build so far has been used to complete $17.5 million of capital improvement projects, including three, 10,000-sq-ft, four-bay fire stations under a prototype design and a 4 million gallon in-ground reservoir with a 6,000-gpm pump station. A two-story, 35,000-sq-ft municipal office complex building was finished in April 2002 by Johnson Carlier Inc., Tempe, Ariz., with Dick & Fritsche Design Group Architecture, Phoenix. It was the town’s first design-build deal and currently houses Gilbert’s planning, building, code compliance, public works, engineering and economic development departments.

	A two-story, 35,000-sq-ft municipal office building finished in April 2002 was the town's first design-build project.

The town presently has nine other design-build jobs totaling $76.9 million under construction, including three arsenic mitigation wells and a 2-million-gallon reservoir and a 6,000-gpm pumping station. Another $37 million of projects is under design. Click here to view pdf chart

They are needed fast. Between private and public projects, the town currently is issuing 350 building permits per month. There is at least $23.2-million worth of additional design-build work scheduled for fiscal year 2005-06.

Big Squeeze

The projects sometimes overlap and coordination becomes critical. Sundt Construction Inc., Tempe, is the design-build contractor for a 21,000-sq-ft, five-bay, brick fire station and a two-story, 65,000-sq-ft tilt-up concrete police evidence/fire warehouse facility located on the same site. It has a guaranteed maximum price contract totaling $20.3 million. Detroit-based SmithGroup Inc. is the project architect under a fixed-fee subcontract.

Shared fire station headquarters and police substation project was condensed to 19 months.

Shortly after the contract award in November 2004, Sundt isolated $3.1-million worth of work consisting of site grading and advance material purchases on longer lead time items such as masonry block and steel. The move enabled the contractor to begin work immediately on the 19-acre site while design still was under way and lock in materials pricing in an unstable market. The fire facility will serve as battalion headquarters, using an emergency response system that interfaces with the neighboring town of Mesa.

"Different users with concurrent projects on a shared site could spell disaster, but progress has been smooth thus far," says Brian Kearney, Sundt’s project director. "By bringing the stakeholders together for weekly and monthly meetings, there has been a clear exchange of information outlining needs and expectations."

The challenges were compounded in July when the town asked the design-build team to accelerate its schedule by four months in order to better coincide with Phoenix-based Pulice Construction’s completion of a $54.1-million, 3.5-mile upgrade of the Santan Loop 202 Freeway. The freeway corridor is the town’s main artery and the new police and fire station will be needed as new major commercial and medical facilities open along the route. Gilbert officials are tapping into a 1% contingency fund for overtime hours to meet the new June 2006 deadline. It will condense the two projects’ time to 19 months.

Adding to the difficulties is yet another concurrent project at the same site. PCL Construction Enterprises Inc., Denver, with Wilson & Co. Inc., Engineers & Architects, Albuquerque, N.M, have a $5.9-million design-build guaranteed maximum price contract for a 2-million-gallon in-ground reservoir, a 6,000-gpm pump station and a 1,500-gpm well that runs through the middle of the same 19-acre property.

The overlapping schedules called for PCL to be onsite before Sundt and finished before the new police and fire station facilities come online. To head off conflict, the two teams met ahead of time to map out logistics for staging and storage, trailer placement and delivery times. "There has been an accommodating attitude since each contractor is dependent upon the other to meet its schedule," says Brian Taylor, PCL’s project manager.

The $25 million South Area Service Center, Public Works Facility & Police Substation, is one of several design-build projects now under way.

Give-and-take has enabled each team to work comfortably within a shared space. PCL, for instance, excavated 16,000 cu. yards of material for its project and shared half of it with Sundt to use as backfill and foundation base. Sundt, in return, helped procure some added storage space for PCL on a neighboring property. "Completing complex, interlocking projects on tight schedule couldn’t happen without the sense of ownership and involvement that design-build fosters," Mood says. "It has been invaluable in helping us meet the demands of rapid growth and speed delivery time for critical community infrastructure."

(All photos courtesy of town of Gilbert)