Friday, December 28, 2012

Evaluation of Project Agreement for PPP--Long Beach Courthouse

In light of the political fracas currently roiling over funding of the 35-year PPP lease payments for the Long Beach Courthouse, the detailed report of the CA Adminstrative Office of the Courts (AOC) regarding their selection of this delivery model makes particularly interesting reading. 

Back in 2007, the legislature authoried the AOC to investigate PPP as a delivery method, and Gov. Code 70391.5 specifically authorized a PPP for Long Beach Courthouse.  In response, the AOC embarked on an evaluation of various delivery models attempting to determine the value for money entailed with different delivery models, including traditional design-bid-build, design-build, design-build-operate, and design-build-operate-maintain-and finance ("DBFOM").  

The report is billed as a neutral investigation into which delivery method was best, but, perhaps betraying a certain outcome bias, the project team adopted the term “performance based infrastructure” for its DBFOM model.  

The report describes how the risk-adjusted whole life cycle cost of DBFOM compared to traditional DBB (Public Sector Comparator).  The team then compared the net present value of these methods, with assistance from Ernst & Young and Davis Langdon Construction cost consultants.

As a negotiating tool, the project team shared its Public Sector Comparator (DBB) cost with the selected proposer to show them what they had to measure against.  The efficacy of this strategy for future projects will be interesting to explore. 

A separate risk analysis and quantification was conducted for each method.  Mean value of each risk was quantified through computer Monte Carlo simulation modeling.  Risk duration was measured for each project delivery method for planning, construction, operation.  Adjustment is made for fact that under DBB not all construction risk is factored into the price.  Under the selected Performance Based Infrastructure model (DBFOM) most of the design, construction, and operational risk for the project was transferred to the successful team.  

The AOC acquired the property, developed design criteria, and the request for proposals.

The report asserts three main reasons for adopting PBI: 1)  Speed  [D-B and don’t need to wait for committed state funding]; 2) Location and size would attract the market; and 3) DBFOM would free up construction funds for other projects.  [This last factor is now seriously in question, see prior post] 

The Department of Finance found there wold be no negative impact on credit rating of state and approved the project.  Although it involved higher fiance cost than DBB, the anticipated savings in development and operation were deemed to justify the selection of DBFOM.

The report details some incompatibilities between tax-exempt financing and PPP, in particular:  1) The need to separate project company from owner risk;  2) the fact that risk capital or equity cannot reside in project company; and 3) that tax exempt bonds are limited to 15 years and thus cannot readily be reconciled with a 35 year operate and maintain contract.

The report notes that steel erection proceeded 1 year after NTP;  would be 2 years with DBB. 
Anybody with an interest in PPP projects would be well served by taking a look at this unusaully exhaustive and detailed report.  It will offer up many lessons and ideas.

Judges in Revolt, and a Balking Legislature Reveal a Fourth P in PPP: Politics!

A judges' revolt, and a balking legislature, have singled out for criticism the selection of a PPP delivery method for construction for the new $725 milllion Long Beach courthouse.  The Honorable David Lempe, a director of the Alliance of California Judges, takes the California Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC)to task.
The trial courts of our state are in crisis. The problem is not simply lack of money.  Budget shortfalls have hurt the courts, but poor management by the Judicial Council and the (AOC) has significantly contirbuted to catastrophic reductions.  The Legislature enacts the annual budget for trial court operations, but gives oversight of the funds ot the Judicial Council and the AOC.  However, the Judicial Council has historically not fully delivereed all of the money the Legislature has appropriated for the trial courts.  And the AOC has been a bloated and impenetrable bureaucracy, which has lost its principal mission to serve the courts and has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars....The AOC has responded with unrestrained growth and spending, unstructured organizational decision-making, and a lack of transparency and accountability. ...
The high cost of courthouses designed and built through the AOC's office of Construction and Maintnance raises doubts about the AOC's ability to responsibly design and build courthouses with the needs of the commnity in mind.  Excessive spending, exorbitant and unnecessary features, square footage and numbers-of courtrooms disproportionate to the populations served, and a lack of concern for taxpayer dollars, have all been demonstrated.  ...
The 'poster child' example of AOC construction blundering may well be the much-needed Long Beach courthouse, still more than a year away from completion.  This crucial project is in jeopardy because the AOC failed to plan adequately for its cost. 
What the judge is alluding to in his broadside against the AOC, among other things, is that the AOC selected a design-build-finance-operate-maintain (PPP) project delivery model for construction of the new Long Beach courthouse, despite somewhat higher financing costs.  A key factor in the decision was a desire to preserve an existing construction fund that the Legislature had allocated for new construction of courts. 

It is, of course, a common rationale offered up by PPP proponents that it allows construction of needed public facilities without public entities having to do the heavy political lifting to raise revenue. Private financing can be paid for with operating revenues from assets like toll bridges, toll roads, or in this case the lease of a mixed use court facility.  In the case of the Long Beach courthouse, it appears the AOC anticipated funding would come in part from annual California Legislature appropriations for lease payments .  There may have been winks and nods under the Schwartzenegger adminstration (big fans of PPP).  But different winds may be blowing now.

In 2007, the legislature authoried the AOC  to investigate PPP's, and Gov. Code 70391.5 specifically authorized a PPP form of Contract for Long Beach Courthouse.  The definitive Project Agreement for the courthouse was signed at the tail end of the Schwartzenegger adminstration in December 2010.  Design started promptly in January of 2011, and construction proceeded on a fast pace, with steel erection taking place in January 2012, estimated to be a full year ahead of a normal design-bid-build schedule. 

Initial lease payments on the 35 year agreement fall due upon the state taking possession of the completed facility, currently scheduled for the fall of 2013.  However, it now appearsthat anticipated funds from the Legislature may not be forthcoming.  Earlier this month the Senate Budget Committee Chairman of the newly dominant Democratic Legislature  told judiciary leaders not to count on any money coming from the overburdened general fund. The AOC should instead rely on an internal judiciary construction fund.  This "internal fund", however, was slated to construct 23 other needed court projects throughout the State.  Now it looks like this money may not be available.  OOPS! 

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Holiday Reading List

Here is the Division 4 Reading list for the Holidays.  Because you never know when you're snowed in at the cabin ...or stuck at Denver airport for 36 hours ...  Happy Holidays!


1.  Nate Silver’s book “The Signal and the Noise: Why so many predictions fail, but some don’t.”    Someone should review this from a litigation perspective, i.e. how do we predict the outcome of cases, and how can we do better. 

2.  Jane Jacobs  “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.”   Jacobs reminds us that the way space is configured—from organization cities to the layout of individual apartments, alters the path of human interaction in profound ways.  I would like someone to review this with an eye to how contracts are laid out and configured can profoundly affect human interaction in project delivery.
  
3.  Brett Frischmann “Infrastructure: The Social Value of Shared Resources.”  Explores how society benefits from infrastructure resources and how managmenet decisions affect a wide variety of interests.  Links infrastructure with commons, a resource principle by which a resource is shared within a community. 

4.  Edward Merrow, “Industrial Megaprojects.”   Among other things, it explains why industrial megaprojects fail.   This is recommended by Andy Ness. 

5.  The Forum’s new Infrastructure Book:  Beltzer, Gerhardt, Kubes, Smith

... please add yours.

Nullum Tempus Occurrit Regi (No Time Runs Against the King)

The Connecticut Supreme Court recently handed down a decision that serves as a reminder of how the playing field is not always level when it comes to lawsuits involving state and local governments.  In State of Connecticut v. Lombardo Brothers Mason Contractors, Inc., 307 Conn. 412 (2012), the Supreme Court of Connecticut issued a ruling that exempts state, quasi-government agencies and municipalities from the statute of limitations and repose.

In State of Connecticut v. Lombardo Brothers Mason Contractors, the State of Connecticut brought suit against a contractor, architect and over twenty other defendants for the alleged defective design and construction of the University of Connecticut School of Law.  The defendants filed various motions to strike and motions for summary judgment seeking the dismissal of the State’s lawsuit based upon the statute of limitations and repose.  The Connecticut Supreme Court agreed with the State that the doctrine of nullum tempus occurrit regi exempted the State from the statute of limitations and repose for tort actions, product liability actions, negligence actions and other actions against design professionals, contractors and land surveyors.

The Connecticut Supreme Court reasoned that the doctrine of nullum tempus occurrit regi was no different from and shared the same philosophical origin as the better known doctrine of sovereign immunity.  The difference, of course, is that sovereign immunity is used by the states as a shield to liability, whereas the doctrine of nullum tempus occurrit regi is used as a sword to initiate litigation.  Much to my surprise, Connecticut is not in the minority of jurisdictions recognizing the doctrine of nullum tempus occurrit regi.  The majority of jurisdictions appear to recognize the nullum tempus exemption as a surviving element from English law. 

Guess it is time for use to pull out our white barristers’ wigs.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Insurance Implications for Alternative Project Delivery

At the Boston meeting, Gregg Bundschuh of Greyling Insurance and Christopher DeBruin of Suffolk Construction Co. gave a presentation on new trends in insurance.  Some of the issues they highlighted are important when considering alternative project delivery methods.  In this post, I'll summarize Gregg and Chris' tips for structuring insurance for alternative delivery projects.

Integrated Project Delivery

A key insurance problem posed by IPD is that the contractual risk-sharing model for IPD participants is typically a no-fault model---risks (and costs) are shared among the participants without regard to fault or negligence.  Insurance, however, is typically keyed to notions of fault and negligence, and therefore traditional insurance policies are often a bad fit for an IPD project.  A further complication is posed by third-party claims---all project participants are liable for a third-party claim, no matter who caused the problem.  Again, this is an approach at odds with traditional insurance.  While the right insurance solution will vary from project to project, common ingredients will be a CIP (OCIP or CCIP) package of CGL, auto, BR, and pollution with broad subrogation waivers, and a custom-tailored PL policy.

Design Build

Gregg and Christopher highlighted the importance, and usefulness, of Contractors Professional Liability (CPL) insurance in a DB setting.  CPL provides two distinct but important coverages.  Part A provides coverage to the contractor for third-party claims arising out of alleged design errors by the contractor.  It effectively operates, for the contractor, as PL insurance does for the designer.  Part B provides coverage to the contractor for its own costs incurred as a result of errors and omissions made by the designer.  The designer's PL policy must be exhausted before Part B coverage will kick in, but Part B coverage also affords "difference in coverage" protection, and if the designer's PL policy excludes costs that the CPL would afford coverage for, the CPL will kick in and pay those costs regardless of exhaustion of the PL policy.  This helps cover common PL exclusions like mold, pollution, and residential projects.

P3

Unfortunately, I simply cannot do justice to the extensive discussion devoted to P3 insurance considerations.  Suffice it to say, for projects of the magnitude typical for a P3, the insurance issues are legion, and no one would ever expect to perform a P3 project without first crafting a project-specific stack of insurance custom-tailored to the particular risks that project posed.  For those interested in far greater detail, I recommend a detailed review of Gregg and Chris' written materials.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Learning how to do PPP Infrastructure Right from Denver RTD

Pranaya Shresta gave an excellent presentation of the project delivery approach slected by the Denver Regional Transportation District's for its $2.2 billion FasTracks project.  The project includes 122 miles of new commuter and light rail, 50 stations, and 31 new Park and Ride facilities creating 21,000 parking spaces.  The project is slated to open to riders in 2016, but so far it looks like this project will set an example of how to do PPP infrastructure right in the United States.



The attached power point gives an overview of the system and how the work was delivered.  Pranaya stressed that the RTD worked hard up front to get buy in from all affected municipalities, and commitments were successfully tied down in an Intergovernmental Agreement before contracts were awarded.

The private public partnership includes about $400 million of financing from the design-build contracting team, which will also operate the facility for 29 years.   The project was expanded this past summer as a result of a successful unsolicited proposal received from Kiewit Infrastructure Company to add the 10.5 miles I-225 Rail Line.

The RTD is extraordinarily open and willing to share its lessons learned and experience.  If you are working on a project in your area, you will want to learn from Denver's experience.

Thank you to Pranaya Shresta, and to Jeff Jackmond for setting up this presentation.




Monday, November 19, 2012

Skinny Residential Towers Rise Again


My friends Jeff and Geraldine live a charmed life that we in the trenches can only dream about.  Jeff is a mathematics professor at University of Michigan and has spent the past couple of decades on a circuit that includes summers at their North Michigan cabin, fall semesters teaching at U Michigan, winter terms teaching at the Sorbonne in Paris, and spring terms teaching at the University of Pisa.  Through it all, Geraldine has maintained a very interesting blog, Travel Oyster.

One of Geraldine's posts was on the residential towers of Pisa.  In Pisa in the 1200's, hemmed in by defensive city walls, it was the fashion of wealthy Pisans to construct pencil thin, tall residential towers.  Casa torres.  Galileo lived in one of them and showed the moons of Jupiter to Cosime II de Medici through his newly perfected telescope from the balcony. 

After 60 years of suburban expansion we are migrating back to the cities, and even though we are no longer hemmed in by city walls, space is at a premium and we are once again building tall residential towers.  In San Francisco, at the west approach to the Bay Bridge, the One Rincon Hill tower stands guard over an endless stream of taillights still heading to the suburbs at the end of the work-day.  This luxury tower was completed in 2008 and is now 97% occupied.

 In this Wall Street Journal article, Eliot Brown writes:
In New York, Tel Aviv, Vancouver and other cities around the globe, skinny apartment towers are on the rise, sprouting like luxury beanstalks from small lots—some only as wide as a handful of townhomes.
... While thin towers already crowd the skyline in land-starved cities like Hong Kong, developers elsewhere generally eschewed the slim structures, opting for larger, more stable floors—typically at least 10,000 square feet for tall buildings. But that's been changing lately. In New York, work has begun on the planned tower at 432 Park Ave., designed by architect Rafael Viñoly, that is expected to have approximately 8,250-square-foot floors and is slated to rise to about 145 feet taller than the Empire State Building. Just one block south of Central Park, the 1,004-foot-tall One57—which saw its crane break during superstorm Sandy—is under construction, with floors as small as 6,240 square feet. And the Cetra/Ruddy-designed One Madison Park, a 597-foot tower with 3,300-square-foot floors, is nearing completion.  ....
Building high, of course, gets expensive. As the floor count goes up, steel takes longer to lift and high winds can stall construction. Slender towers need a giant device, called a damper, toward the top to counter sway from wind. Without such features, buildings could rock to the point of making residents motion-sick.
"It's definitely not easy or cheap," said Michael Stern, managing partner of JDS Development Group, which is planning to soon start construction on a 679-foot tower on a lot just 43-feet wide down the block from One57. Rising high-end apartment prices, he said, have helped make such buildings possible.
Technology has also helped give rise to the buildings. For instance, the material of choice for apartment towers, steel-reinforced concrete, is more than twice as strong as a generation ago. Software in engineering offices can much better predict issues like how much a tower might sway, allowing for more efficient buildings with fewer columns.  "Ten years ago, the tools were a lot rougher," said Ahmad Rahimian, chief executive at WSP Cantor Seinuk, a structural-engineering firm that's currently working on at least a half-dozen narrow, tall apartment towers. "It's getting a lot more sophisticated."
Fetching a premium price of up to $90 million dollars for some penthouses, these towers, like the casa torres of old are upscale abodes for the masters of the universe, and living there is something that most of us can only dream about.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Fast Fish, Loose Fish

I hooked an interview with the general counsel of a major institution for a large case the other day.  I felt like some great fisherman upon the sea.  I had great recommendations from clients and from a trusted friend of the general counsel I interviewed with; I had the Construction Defects book for which I am lead editor hot off the presses to hand out as a party favor.  That fish should not have gotten away.  So I kick myself for not being sufficiently suave, too free in my assessment of a difficult case, too myself with someone who didn’t know me.

I was thinking of this on a jog, listening to Moby Dick.  This being the Wednesday after the election I was also musing on polls, the scramble for votes, and full of empathy for dashed hopes. Loose fish. 

And then Melville explained all: 
The allusion to the waif-poles in the last chapter but one, necessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and badge.
It frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in company, a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be finally killed and captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly comprised many minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature. For example,- after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, the body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and drifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a calm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus the most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between the fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal, undisputed law applicable to all cases.
Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the States-General in A.D. 1695. But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling law, yet the American fishermen have been their own legislators and lawyers in this matter. They have provided a system which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian’s Pandects and the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People’s Business. Yes; these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne’s forthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they.
I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.
II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.
But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirable brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to expound it.
First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast, when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at all controllable by the occupant or occupants,- a mast, an oar, a nine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same. Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any other recognized symbol of possession; so long as the party wailing it plainly evince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their intention so to do.
 These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalemen themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks- the Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more upright and honorable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases, where it would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim possession of a whale previously chased or killed by another party. But others are by no means so scrupulous.
Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover litigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of their lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat itself. Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up with the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it before the very eyes of the plaintiffs. And when those defendants were remonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs’ teeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had done, he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had remained attached to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore the plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale, line, harpoons, and boat.
Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough was the judge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on to illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con. case, wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife’s viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of life; but in the course of years, repenting of that step, he instituted an action to recover possession of her. Erskine was on the other side; and he then supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of the great stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned her; yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and therefore when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then became that subsequent gentleman’s property, along with whatever harpoon might have been found sticking in her.
Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative to each other. 
These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very learned Judge in set terms decided, to wit,- That as for the boat, he awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it to save their lives; but that with regard to the controverted whale, harpoons, and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale, because it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture; and the harpoons and line because when the fish made off with them, it (the fish) acquired a property in those articles; and hence anybody who afterwards took the fish had a right to them. Now the defendants afterwards took the fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs.'
A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of the matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling laws previously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in the above cited case; these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence; for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines, has but two props to stand on.
Is it not a saying in every one’s mouth, Possession is half of the law: that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow’s last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain’s marble mansion with a doorplate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish? What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from the poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone’s family from starvation; what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the Archbishop of Savesoul’s income of L100,000 seized from the scant bread and cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of heaven without any of Savesoul’s help) what is that globular 100,000 but a Fast-Fish. What are the Duke of Dunder’s hereditary towns and hamlets but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all these, is not Possession the whole of the law?
But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is internationally and universally applicable.
What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of wailing it for his royal master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All Loose-Fish.
What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish? What all men’s minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?
 

Friday, November 2, 2012

Adding Rings to the City of Houston

I'm reading through the 10/15/12 issue of ENR, and note that the Texas DOT is adding another ring road for the city of Houston, a 184 mile outer  loop.  Three segments (37 miles) were awarded on September 27, 2012 to Zachary-Oderbrecht.  This $1.04 billion contract includes 50 bridges, frontage roads, and drainage and utility infrastructure. 

Ring roads circle the center, they allow movement and development along the periphery.  They sniff about the center.  My relatives lived on the sixth Ringstrasse in Vienna before WWII.  We recently visited the building they used to own and found the daughter of the caretaker still remembering the grandparents.  That ring road was built outside the original city walls in open space that once was reserved for military parade grounds.  Ring roads strike me as the opposite of Roman city roads, which emanate from the city center and are outward looking.  

The poster at left was produced by the Rice School of Architecture, located in Houston. They collected ring roads from 27 international cities and layered them all at the same scale.  As it turned out, Houston has the largest system of those they surveyed, with Beijing  second.  With unlimited space to expand into, Houston, like the great sequoias out west, marks its age with rings.

Texas Senate Bill 1420 granted TxDOT the authority to develop the Grand Parkway through public-private partnership.  Some notable features are that the DOT, at its election, may choose to have the contractor provide 15 years of maintenance of the road after completion.   Zachary-Oderbrecht submitted a wide variety of alternate technical concepts for consideration by DOT, and 10 of these were approved and incorporated in the proposal. 

Design work will begin shortly, and construction is slated to start in early 2013. 

Does anyone have information on the awarding process?  How many proposals, etc.?  This will be a toll road, but the article does not indicate who is providing the financing, or how the revenue risk is allocated. 

If you have information, join the conversation. 

Monday, October 15, 2012

Alternative Delivery Methods vs. Traditional Standards of Care

I was recently involved in a case that presented a set of facts that should be familiar to most construction law practitioners.  The architect prepared a set of plans and specifications.  Subcontractors bid on those plans and specs.  Later (after the subcontract had been executed), one of the subs discovered it had a bid bust---it had neglected to include the sort of equipment needed to meet code (and the design) in its bid.  Instead, it had bid presuming it could use non-code-compliant (and non-design-compliant) equipment.  The sub meets with the GC, and even though they both understand that code compliance requires a certain type of equipment, they agree that the sub should prepare a submittal for non-code-compliant equipment, submit the same to the architect, and see if they can get it approved.  The architect doesn't recognize from the submittal that the equipment is not code compliant (and not compliant with his design), and approves the submittal.  Later, the building department red-flags the equipment, the owner orders the GC to replace it, and the GC submits a claim for the increased cost of the code-compliant equipment, arguing that the architect approved the equipment installed.  The GC (and, eventually, the owner) takes the position that this is the architect's fault (should have been more careful reviewing the submittal!) and therefore, the architect ought to pay for it.

Again: this must sound common to many of you.  And, most of you probably have a good idea what you think of the merits of the claim against architect.  Now, let me add one additional fact: this was a design-build job, and the architect was under contract with the GC, not the owner.

Does that immediately change how you think about the case?  Should it?  The architect's standard of care is the same regardless of who hires him, isn't it?  Or, now that the architect is explicitly NOT acting as the owner's agent/protector, does that change the outcome of the claim?

Beyond any individual's thoughts about what the law ought to be in a situation like this, here's the stark reality: the law regarding professional liability for designers has grown out of 75+ years of traditional design-bid-build delivery.  The law has, often silently, incorporated this traditional view of the roles of the construction team.  We are far past the point where design-build can be described as a "new," or even really as an "alternative" delivery system.  It is quite commonplace nationwide.  But, as disputes grow out of those projects, they all too often encounter a legal system still utterly ignorant of how these new systems work.  When that happens, your client (or opponent) can fall through a crack in the precedent.  If I wanted to make a claim this architect, and explain why he was at fault for not catching the contractor's shenanigans, I could lay my hands on ample precedent to support my claim.  But here we have an architect actively deceived by his client, who conspired with a subcontractor to dupe the architect into approving a product both the GC and the sub knew was improper.  When the architect is acting on behalf of the owner, I know how that story ends (or I know how I could argue it should end, from both sides).  But when the architect is acting on behalf of the GC, the issue immediately gets muddy, both for me, and for the court.

It can scarcely be a surprise that the construction industry is evolving faster than the appellate courts can keep up.  This is true for many other industries as well.  The issue for we honored few, we construction lawyers, is: how to we figure out and create the new rules to govern the new industry?

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

2013 Public Private Partnership Conference

The 2013 P3C conference will be held on February 21-22 in Dallas.  I've never attended one of these conferences, but it looks like a meeting of major players in the public private partnership world.  More than 25 public agencies will be making presentations about upcoming projects.   You can learn about EB-5 Visa financing, the latest trends in public private partnerships, including public involvement in hospitality projects.  Public owners can learn how to attract private capital.  There will be sessions on New Market Tax Credits and lots more ....  

Check it out!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Keep Your Head Up!

The expense of purchasing and learning diverse BIM platforms and software has been a major factor holding back the effective and widespread use of BIM on projects.  That appears to be changing with the arrival  of BIM-in-the-cloud providers.  


Model-driven project delivery on jobsites could be taking a big leap forward with a license deal between project information management (PIM) provider Newforma and M-SIX's 3D software platform, called VEO. Robert Batcheler, a cofounder of the Manchester, N.H.-based Newforma, says with the VEO license, customers can view and navigate 3D building models without the need for the underlying software or authoring tools that were used to generate the model. This is a major trend in project delivery: deploying platforms that achieve true BIM-in-the-cloud functionality, including generative capacity, he says. With the VEO platform, if a project is working with models that were created, say, using Autodesk's Revit authoring tool, project teams can access the files on the VEO platform without a full Revit installation.
Accessing BIM models on project by construction teams "can be a challenge for mere mortals to master," Batcheler says.  Using the VEO platform, project teams can access the geometry of commonly-used 3D models though the cloud "without the risk of an untrained person damaging or corrupting the model," he adds. 
If that sounds similar to the souped-up BIM readers that are in use on many jobsites these days, think again, he says. It's true that many BIM readers for iPads and other smart devices are available, such as Bentley's ProjectWise for the iPad, Autodesk's hugely popularAutoCAD WS for iOS devices and Graphisoft's BIMx for iOS devices. 



Autodesk, reports ENR, is set to release a host of new cloud based tools in 2013.  Undoubtedly, these new tools will see more and more use in the courtrooms,arbitration rooms, and mediation rooms.

It's time for lawyers to get tech savy!  Keep your head up.  It works in tennis and skiing.  

Monday, September 10, 2012

Are Storm Water Run-Off Regulations Bad for Construction?

Engineering News Record tries to examine what a Romney administration would mean for construction.  Here is their tally sheet:

Contractors are hoping that a Romney administration might:  

  • "knock down regulatory hurdles that get in the way of contractors"
  • "place greater reliance on public private partnerships"
  • "practice environmental streamlining"
  • "scale back plans to stiffen regulations"
  • "expedite projects"
  • "reduce taxes on businesses"
  • "repeal the job-killing Obama-backed health-care law"
  • "ban project labor agreements on federal projects on day one"
  • "eliminate estate taxes"
  • lower wage surveys used for prevailing wage tables

On the other hand contractors are afraid that a Romney administration will:

  • advocate spending cuts, including cuts in infrastructure spending
  • When Governor, they fret, "he cut budgets across the board."  
  • "Almost all new transportation projects stopped for his four-year term."
  • "(His) stands on high-speed rail and Highway Trust Fund also are suspect"

As the article points out, reading the entrails of the campaigns to foretell the future health of the construction industry is tricky business.

What is clear is that across the country we have tremendous needs to refurbish decaying infrastructure and to build new infrastructure--roads, rail, airports, schools, water systems, electrical generation and transmission--so we can uphold our standard of living and be competitive in the world market over the next 50 years.  The country has needs for construction to be a $1.3 trillion plus industry again.  This calls for a government with an appreciation for the long term benefits of  fulfilling infrastructure needs now.

People differ on what it means to develop infrastructure well.  Some want to do it as cheaply as possible with as little government involvement as possible.  Some want to do it with regulation aimed at establishing minimum standards for worker safety, environmental stewardship, and transparency.  Some want to maximize the profits of contractors, some want to maximize the wages of workers.  Some want to assure that public dollars are spent without favoritism or undue influence.

What everyone agrees on is the industry needs projects funded.  Lots of them.  Our industry won't be able to fix the nation's ailing infrastructure, or return to a $1.3 trillion plus industry, if the government won't spend on infrastructure.

Whether we do this with more or less regulations to assure storm water doesn't carry away soil into streams, and with more or less health care for workers or society as a whole, is beside the point.  Lobbying for funding of construction is a matter of interest for the entire construction industry irrespective of political bent.  No matter who occupies the White House, the message should be "Just fund those projects.  You say you want storm water regulation?  We'll do it any which way you want!"  


Sunday, September 9, 2012

A Sunday Question About Spearin v. U.S.

I am working on a presentation about the "Spearin" doctrine.  We normally think of this as the implied warranty of correctness of plans and specifications, without thinking about it too critically.  I will discuss three prongs.

  1. The original holding of Spearin, which is (in a different example) that if plans require contractor to install a certain sized beam and that beam breaks because calculations were off, the owner (and engineer) are responsible, not the Contractor.  I don't think that is a warranty concept.  
  2. The superior knowledge doctrine: owner has knowledge that should tell owner that representations made on plans are incorrect, or owner conceals relevant information. I don't think that's a warranty concept either (this is an aspect of fraud and covenant of good faith and fair dealing).
  3. The implied warranty of correctness of plans; i.e. that plans are fully coordinated and sufficient for construction with no change necessary. [I think there is less support for this proposition in the law than we normally pretend] 

The third of these prongs implies that if a change is necessary in the field to carry out the plans, this is a breach of warranty by owner, and gives rise to damages. Another way to approach this issue is through the changes clause: if Kor is required to build as drawn, but building as drawn is impossible, there is a change and this change gets handled through the changes clause. There is no breach.

As to this third prong, the question arises: is the change already priced in the contract. For example, coordinating HVAC and electrical in tight quarters involves changes, but such changes are routine. They happen on every project. As such, many such changes are already included in the labor costs assumed at bid time. Labor costs are determined from experience on past similar projects; if past similar project had the same changes, the labor costs should reflect that.

Here is the question. How do you tell which means and method changes are included in the original price? I think it's not as easy as looking at the contractor's take off and bid documents because many means and method changes are assumed as part of the original labor cost. How do you draw the line? How do you determine what should give rise to extra costs, and what should not?  How can we address this issue in contract documents up front?

Thursday, September 6, 2012

North Carolina State Building Commission: "Design Build is not Allowed; Please Ask us to Do Design Build"

North Carolina General Statutes Section 143-128 sets forth the general methods of contracting allowed to public agencies in North Carolina.  Broadly speaking the statute allows:  
  1. Multiple-prime contracting
  2. Single-prime contracting
  3. Dual prime contracting (combination of multi-prime and single prime)
  4. CM at risk
  5. Or any other method allowed by the Building Commission
Although the authenticity of this is not self-evident, I got it from the Design Build Institute and have no reason to doubt it, the North Carolina Building Commission adopted a resolution on August 28, 2012 encouraging local entitites to apply to the Building Commision  for design-build approval. 

Here's the Building Commission: 
WHEREAS, the State Building Commission acknowledges the merit of the Design/Build delivery method for certain projects and has authorized the use of Design/Build in the past, with apparent success, now therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED, that the State Building Commissions encourages State agencies and institutions, local government units or any other entity subject to the provisions of G.S. 143 to utilize the procedures adopted by the State Building Commission when seeking authorize to use Design/Build as a construction contracting method and to consider the following:
1.   The public owner has the responsibility to secure construction services with method that will provide a fair and full opportunity for open competition and ensure that the public project is built at a competitive price to the taxpayer without favoritism.
2.   Licensed design professionals have responsibilities to public health, safety and welfare that cannot be lessened or delegated in any way because of the involvement as part design/build team. This suggests that appropriate design fees must always be part any Design/Build proposal.
3.   Although G.S. 143-135.8 allows bidders to be prequalified for any public construction project, the law does not allow a shortlisting process to restrict the number of potential bidders. Also, the final selection of the Design/Build team must be based on the low qualified bid pursuant to G.S. 143-129.
4.   The cost incurred by design and construction professionals, when responding to a Design/Build Request for Proposal, can be significant (a cost that can run well into fi figures) and could prove to be a deterrent to competition. Therefore, the State Building Commission believes it is essential that “bridging documents” be prepared by the o (or his independent design professional,) to be used as an objective basis for competitive responses to any Design/Build RFP.
5.   The cost to smaller design and construction firms to prepare a design build proposal may hamper their ability to compete with large firms, thus limiting the number of competitive proposals that the Owner receives.
6.   The Construction Manager at Risk construction delivery method authorized by G.S 1128 is a construction method which allows qualification based selection of the contractor and offers many of the advantages of the Design/Build method and, in addition, allows the Owner to have an independent assessment of the construction quality by licensed design professionals. Therefore, the Construction Manager at Risk delivery method should be considered prior to seeking authority for Design/Build.

Primer on Federally Funded Local Projects: From Design-Build Procurement to Traffic Control

The Federal Highway Administration has a website providing federal aid essentials for local public entities, but the site serves as a primer for anyone wishing to get oriented in the arena of federally funded local projects.

The website includes a series of videos covering:
  • an introduction to project construction and administration
  • project management and supervising agency requirements
  • quality assurance
  • design-build procurement
  • project close-out
  • scheduling and time managment
  • change orders
  • buy America field compliance
  • job site posters and compliance
  • payroll submittals, documentation, and compliance
  • worker safety
  • transportation plan management, and
  • work zone traffic control  
As an incidental lesson, you can learn how not to overuse animation, which is done to the point of distraction in these videos.  But, hey, it's your tax-dollars at work ... so enjoy! 

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Army Solicits Bids for New Design-Bid-Build Hospital Construction at Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX

Congress has allotted $946 million for construction of a new 135-bed hospital complex at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas.  HDR Architects from Omaha, NB designed  what appears to be a traditional design-bid-build project. 
Clark/McCarthy Healthcare Partners, a joint venture of Clark Construction of Maryland, and McCarthy Construction Companies of St. Louis; Hensel Phelps Construction Co., based in Colorado; and a joint venture of Manhattan Construction Group, of Tulsa, and Hunt Construction Group, based in the Phoenix area, and not tied to Hunt Companies of El Paso, are companies that have made it known they will submit bids to be the project's prime contractor.
The Army Corps of Engineers is expected to issue the final bid solicitation for the project this week. Bids will likely be due by the end of September or early October. ....
Tom Fisher, vice president of Hensel Phelps' Southwest district headquarters in Austin, said his company did $750 million worth of projects in the last five years during the Fort Bliss expansion.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Lessons from a war

I'm always hesitant to compare any other human endeavor to warfare.  Art Donovan, the Baltimore Colts' Hall of Fame defensive tackle and WWII Marine, said it best: "People say football is war.  Football ain't war.  The guy in the trench over there doesn't know what a nice guy I really am."  My reticence notwithstanding, there are some parallels between war and litigation, and one parallel in particular is important: in each endeavor, we are striving to accomplish a goal in the face of an opponent who is striving to ensure we don't reach that goal.  With that in mind, it is fair to say that we can, on occasion, learn something from those whose struggles were more literal, and more serious, than our own.

One lesson that has served me well in my practice comes from Ulysses S. Grant, the nation's second five-star general: remember that your opponent is as scared of you as you are of him.  The story of that lesson, as it played out in Grant's career and as applied to our careers, is an interesting study.

1. The Lesson


While Ulysses S. Grant went on to great acclaim as the commanding general first of the Army of the Tennessee and later of the entire Union Army, the beginning of the Civil War found Grant in command of a relatively small (just over 3,000 men) regiment consisting largely of volunteers, rather than trained soldiers (Grant was a West Point graduate, and his prior war-time experience had been the Mexican War, during which the United States' forces were almost exclusively trained, professional soldiers).  Furthermore, while Grant began the Civil War as a Colonel, he had left the Army in 1854 as a captain, and had never been ultimately responsible for a post or region before---Grant had always had a superior whose orders he could follow, and who was responsible for strategic decisions.  Thus, in 1861, when Grant found himself in command of the Twenty-First Illinois Volunteer Regiment, and responsible for the District of Cairo (Illinois), he was in a position he had never filled before: that of ultimate authority over his men, and his region.

In July of 1861, Grant and his regiment was on its way to Quincy, Illinois when he was informed that Confederate forces had surrounded Union troops near Palmyra, Missouri.  Grant changed course to relieve the Union garrison.  In his memoirs, Grant wrote: "My sensations as we approached what I supposed might be 'a field of battle' were anything but agreeable.  I had been in all the engagements in Mexico that it was possible for one person to be in; but not in command.  If some one else had been colonel and I had been lieutenant-colonel I do not think I would have felt any trepidation."[1]  Grant arrived in Palmyra to find that the Confederate forces had decamped prior to his arrival, but was ordered to continue south to Florida, Missouri, and engage Confederate Colonel Thomas Harris, who was believed to be encamped in that area.  Grant recounted the morning his forces arrived at Harris' encampment this way:

As we approached the brow of the hill from which it was expected we could see Harris' camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat.  I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on.  When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view I halted.  The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was still there and the marks of a recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone.  My heart resumed its place.  It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him.  This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards.  From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety.  I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his.  The lesson was valuable.[2]

2. The Outcome

While we are all aware that the Union won the Civil War, and while most of us are generally aware that Grant was instrumental in that victory and became first a hero to the American public and then a two-term President (a role he proved to be much less suited for), the precise mechanism of Grant's victory is not nearly as well known.  While entire books have been written about the Civil War's endgame, a cogent summary of Grant's tactics suffices for our purposes.  The Overland Campaign had two major components: General Sherman would transit the deep South to disrupt Confederate supply chains, while Grant would enter Virginia to locate, engage, and destroy General Lee's Army of Virginia.

Grant's portion of the Overland Campaign consisted of a series of battles against General Lee, which are remembered (in order of occurrence) as The Wilderness, Spotslyvania, North Anna, and Cold Harbor.  From an outside perspective, none of these battles individually, and certainly not the battles collectively, appear to be Union victories.  Total Union casualties for these battles were 52,788, while Confederate casualties were 32,907.  Following Cold Harbor, Grant besieged Petersburg, Virginia, a vital railroad hub.  The first weeks of the Petersburg siege looked as mathematically bad for Grant as the Overland Campaign up to that point: the Union was suffering casualties at three times the rate of the Confederates.  But Grant's constant westward elongation of the Petersburg siege line thinned Lee's lines to the breaking point, and on April 2, 1865, Petersburg fell to Union forces.  Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the Civil War.

Civil War historians and military academics are sharply divided in their judgment of Grant as a commanding general.  Grant's detractors argue, in essence, that Grant's victory was ultimately merely a numbers game---by the time Grant rose to command of the Union armies, Union forces so overwhelmingly outnumbered Confederate forces that victory was almost a foregone conclusion.  Detractors frequently point to Grant's inordinately high casualty rates as evidence of his lack of skill as a commanding officer and tactician.

Putting aside the true size of the Union numeric advantage under Grant's command (which has been, and continues to be, hotly contested), there are several points to be made in Grant's defense.  First, the Union had enjoyed numeric advantages throughout the Civil War, and yet General Lee and the Confederates had consistently won battles against Grant's predecessors.  Second, while Grant's armies indeed suffered significant casualties, any critique of Grant's tactics must begin with an admission that Grant achieved his goal: the defeat of Lee's Army of Virginia.  This has been the primary Union goal since the beginning of the war, and Grant achieved that goal in little more than one year.

Grant's tactics in the Overland Campaign directly recall the lesson he learned in Missouri.  Grant knew General Lee's reputation as an effective and brilliant general, and certainly Grant knew of Lee's past successes against the very army Grant was to lead.  Yet if Grant was in any way afraid of Lee or his army, the tactics of the Overland Campaign do not reveal it.  Grant entered Virginia to engage Lee's army, and once the armies were engaged, Grant pursued Lee wherever Lee took his forces.  As often as not, the location of their battles was determined by Lee, and Grant's forces were often attacking entrenched, defensive positions.  Many Union generals before Grant had avoided engaging Lee when they would have to attack defensive positions.  Grant had no such compunction.  And, while Grant's casualty rate was high, no one can argue with the results of his campaign.
 
3. The Application to the Practice of Law
 
Lawyers constantly obsess about the weaknesses in our cases.  By the time discovery is in full swing, no one knows the holes in our case like we do.  Further complicating matters, many times our clients either cannot or will not recognize that these same problems exist, and many clients who will admit their own problems brush off any concerns with a "it doesn't matter that we did X, because they did Y, which is much worse" approach.  Thus, the lawyer, particularly the partner in charge of the case, is left virtually alone to worry about how to deal with the holes in his or her case.

There are several important lessons we can learn from Grant.  First, remember that when we say "no one knows the problems in our case like we do," that is usually literally true.  So long as you have made a thorough investigation and done an appropriate, neutral analysis, at any time during the litigation, you are more familiar with the weaknesses in your case than your opponent is.  Second, remember that you're not the only one agonizing over the problems in your case---your opponent probably is, too.  Rather than just thinking about why you are afraid of your opponent's case, spend some serious time thinking about why your opponent should be afraid of your case.

It is also possible to use this lesson to your advantage in settlement negotiations.  Just as we all know the weaknesses of our own cases, so too we recognize when our opponent has identified one of these weaknesses.  As parties enter settlement discussions (whether they are formally-structured negotiations like mediation, or informal counsel-to-counsel negotiations), their view of their own case is influenced by what has transpired in the litigation.  If you can focus early discovery on your own theories of the case, you should be able to identify enough weaknesses in the other side's case to favorably tip the negotiating field in your favor.


[1] Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Grant, Ulysses S., Konecky & Konecky Edition, at page 148.
[2] Id. at page 149.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

DOD and Department of Interior Band Together to Leverage Available Land for Renewable Energy Development

The U.S. Defense Department has announced that it will open up 13 million acres surrounding bases for development of renewable power projects, like solar and wind.  The goal is to help the military reduce its $4 billion annual energy bill and to provide energy independence for security puroses.

A study released by the Defense Department this year estimates that land surrounding just four military bases in Southern California could generate seven gigawatts of solar energy.  The January 2012 report concluded:
Such on-site energy generation, together with energy storage and so-called smart-microgrid technology, would allow a military base to maintain its critical operations “off-grid” for weeks or months if the grid is disrupted.
Accordingly, on August 6, 2012 Leon Panetta announced a joint memorandum of understanding between the Departments of Defense and the Interior that sets aside public lands and other onshore and offshore areas near military installations for development of renewable energy projects.
Each of the military services has committed to deploy 1 gigawatt of renewable energy on or near its installations by 2025. .... Defense installations encompass roughly 28 million acres in the United States, of which 16 million acres previously managed by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management were withdrawn for military use by executive order, congressional legislation or departmental regulations. About 13 million acres of these withdrawn lands are in the West and are high in wind, solar and geothermal resources.
Offshore wind also is an abundant renewable energy resource available to many coastal installations. Offshore Atlantic winds alone could produce an estimated 1,000 gigawatts of energy, Interior Department officials said.
The memo ... establishes a framework for an offshore wind partnership in which the Defense and Interior departments will continue to work together to identity areas most appropriate for offshore wind development. To encourage a dialogue with industry, the departments will co-chair a military/industry offshore wind forum this fall to initiate information sharing among the military, other federal agencies and industry. ....  [T]he Defense Department will explore ways in which renewable energy could be provided directly to a single installation or may be transmitted across a network of installations. Some larger projects could involve the sale of excess power to the grid, provided appropriate measures ensure base security. ....  DOD and the Bureau of Land Management will develop a pilot process for authorizing solar energy projects on several military installations, including the Barry M. Goldwater Range and Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona and Fort Irwin, Calif. The Defense Department will take the lead in permitting and leasing for renewable energy projects on lands withdrawn for defense-related purposes.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

3,200 Bed Hospitals Anyone?

New York Presbytarian Hospital/Weil Cornell Medical Center is the largest medical facility in the United States, with 2,236 beds.  The largest hospital west of the Mississipi is Babtist Medical Center in San Antonio with 1,414 beds.  The largest hospital in California is Ceder Sinai in Los Angeles at 947 beds.  The big project in the offing in San Francisco--will they or won't they come to terms with the city!--is Sutter's 555 bed Cathedral Hill project.  The venerable Walter Reed Hospital reached a maximum size of 2,500 beds during World War I.

These projects in the United States are dwarfed by the hospital construction program currently under way in Turkey, with less than 1/4 of U.S. population.  The Turkish Ministry of Health has launched a major PPP procurement program to deliver a new wave of healthcare campuses and hospitals for the country.  In an interview, Federico Ferrari, Partner at DLA Piper Istanbul, who is acting as PPP legal advisor to the Ministry, reports that 16 projects have been tendered, including two with more than 3,000 beds.  All of them are larger than projects currently on the books in the U.S. 

The consortia bidding on these projects are predominantly from Italy and Spain.  Some American consulting companies are involved, but not, apparently, any U.S. general contractors.  Ferrari describes that these PPP proposals proceed on parallel tracks, with the final decision being based predominantly on price.  The price is driven down during a final head-to-head auction, which has included as many as 200 rounds of bidding.  The last consortium standing gets the job. 

Kayseri, Turkey, will build a new 3,200 bed hospital
Ferrari discusses currency and inflation risks, which are shared by the Ministry and the successful consortium up to 25% fluctuation; thereafter the ministry takes the risk. 

Apparently the ministry would like to see additional consortia compete for these projects.  Of the 16 projects tendered, 8 have been awarded to date, with six of these still in negotiation and two having reached commercial close. 

So, Turkey anyone? I hear it's a nice place. 



Thursday, July 26, 2012

What's the Best Delivery Method for Road Projects?

In an article entitled in Financial analysis of road project delivery systems, 14 Journal of Financial Management and Construction 61 (2009), two authors from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Pertti Lahdenpera and Tiina Koppinen, expanded on an earlier study they performed to identify the most cost effective manner to commission a road.  In the earlier study, the authors did not consider financing issues, including the option to use private-financing; in the instant study, they did.

The authors analyzed five different delivery methods:  Construction Management-Agency ("CMA"; a.k.a. CM-at-fee or CM-not-at-risk), Design-Build ("DB"), Design-Bid-Build ("DBB"), and Design-Build-Operate ("DBO") and Design-Build-Finance-Operate ("DBFO" -- a form of public-private partnership or P3).  Interestingly, especially given some of the conclusions, the authors did not consider CM-at-risk, where, unlike CMA, the construction manager is contractually obligated and responsible for delivering the project.

The authors utilized a DCF or Discounted Cash Flow analysis to determine and compare the various project delivery methods' present costs.  They considered the cost to the owner and the cost to society, the latter including an estimate of €1 million for each month of delay in commissioning a road.  Among other various assumptions and estimates, they excluded taxes and assumed all work was out-sourced.  The assumption that all services are out-sourced raises an interesting question of whether a comparison of CMA, DBB, and DB with operation and maintenance being performed in-house changes the outcome.  The authors also performed sensitivity analyses to determine what impact a change in estimates had on a procurement's present costs (e.g. a change in interest rates).

Based on the results, the authors ranked the procurement methods where public financing is used.  DBO was "clearly" the most efficient in terms of an owner's costs, followed in order by DB, CMA, and DBB (i.e. DBB costs the most).  DBFO's competitive position was not absolutely clear, but it seemed to be in the middle with DB and less costly than DBB and CMA.  With CMA being the fastest to commissioning, the need for early commissioning can render CMA superior to DBFO.  Not surprisingly, the authors further found that DBFO was affected the most when performing sensitivity analyses; changes in assumptions affected the others in a similar fashion.    

With austerity measures necessarily in place in many regions of the world, one must wonder if DBFO will become more prevalent for commissioning roads than DBO and other procurement methods notwithstanding DBFO may according to this study be more expensive.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

CBO Report on Infrastructure Bank for Surface Transportation

President Obama has proposed a federal infrastructure bank in his budget for 2013.  On July 12, 2012 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its report outlining the parameters of such an infrastructure bank.

For each of the past three years the country has spent approximately $200 billion on surface transportation infrastructure--highways, mass transit, and passenger rail .  Of this, about $50 billion has come from the federal government, with the bulk coming from state and local government.  Private rail investment has contributed about $12 billion annually.  This is not enough.  We need additional funding to maintain our current systems, and we need significantly more to meet future needs.  How will this infrastructure be funded?

The proposed federal infrastructure bank is designed to close the gap of needed financing for major surface transportation projects that will primarily be  funded with user fees, such as tolls, and value capture (e.g. tax increment financing).  A perceived benefit is that a federal infrastructure bank could make decisions of funding based on merit from a pool of applicants, relatively isolated from political pressures, and it could focus on projects that cross jurisdictional boundaries.

The report compares funding under the currently enacted Department of Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program.  The main difference is that TIFIA money is primarily handed out in the form of grants.  The source of TIFIA money is federal gas taxes and other federal tax revenues.  The report notes that the most recent authorization for federal transportation programs includes an expansion of the TIFIA program.  The infrastructure bank would be targeted on projects with a dedicated revenue stream.

To the extent that a public infrastructure bank could depoliticize the funding of programs and work across multi-jurisdictional lines, that would seem to be a good development.  While they are at it, efforts should be made to streamline EIR review for multi-jursidictional projects.  Do it once, do it right, and build it!