Schooled in Design-Build

Design-Build Teams Wrap Up Two South Florida High Schools

By Debra Wood

School boards in Palm Beach and Broward counties hired James B. Pirtle Construction Co. of Davie, Fla., to design and build their recent high school projects and are pleased that the jobs will wrap up ahead of schedule.

"Design-build is the best delivery method we have," said Greg Boardman, a project manager with Broward County Public Schools. "It's definitely much faster. And it has terrific advantages as far as change-order percentages. They are very low, because the architect is directly reporting to the contractor."

Broward County Public Schools contracted with Pirtle to design and build Coral Glades High School in Coral Springs and Palm Beach County School District brought in the contractor for its West Boca Raton Community High School.

Coral Glades

Broward awarded Pirtle the $27 million contract to design and build Coral Glades High School in Coral Springs in November 2002. Zyscovich Inc. of Miami designed the two-story, courtyard-style school.

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"I like the design-build arena because it affords the advantage of direct or open communication between the architect and contractor," said Bill Oakman, Pirtle project manager for the high school.

Pirtle had completed two prior design-build schools with Zyscovich, and the companies had worked on several other projects together. Both firms have extensive portfolios of completed schools. Zyscovich Vice President Jose Murguido said that experience helped secure the Coral Glades contract.

"The Broward County School Board has a multitiered review process for design-build submissions," he added. "They evaluate not only the design and price, but also the strength of the team, its longevity together, its past performance and its experience with K-12 facilities.

"One of the key factors of a successful design-build process is a working relationship between the builder and architect. You do not want to go through relationship building as you are designing a building in an accelerated design process."

A delay in obtaining the land pushed construction back by a couple of months. The city of Coral Springs owned the site and entered into an agreement with the school district in which the school could occupy 20 acres of the city's Sportsplex at Coral Springs. Those acres had been leased to a golf practice facility.

Under the agreement, athletic fields would be placed in the sports complex and shared by both the school and public. Sportsplex participants would be allowed to park at the school.

Even though breaking the lease with the golf course operator delayed groundbreaking, the school district did not extend the completion deadline because it needed the school to open in August. Pirtle had recently completed a similar structure, and while Coral Glades had some modifications, the team felt confident it could finish it in time.

Once on site, Pirtle needed to remove and haul away 100,000 cu. yds. of muck and replace it with 50,000 cu. yds. of good soil. Coral Springs is noted for its cap rock, and Pirtle crews found much rock at the site.

"We could watch these huge machines work more like a chipper than a digger," said Paul Carty, Pirtle vice president and the project executive. "You'd see sparks flying off the rock. It was a very slow process."

Pirtle also added utilities and building pads for an auditorium and a future classroom building. About 1,600 students will attend the 220,000-sq.-ft. campus, which includes four tilt-wall buildings.

The city of Coral Springs awarded Pirtle a separate $7.6 million design-build contract to widen the access road and complete the school's track, tennis and basketball courts, concession stands and other athletic amenities.

Carty served as project executive for both jobs. Each has a separate project manager. It completed the city work in the spring and expected to wrap up minor finishing work before opening day on Aug. 16.

"Our proudest thing is being able to deliver the school so the students are able to start in August," Carty said. "We made a commitment to them up front. Although we had a two-month delay getting going, we stuck with that commitment."

West Boca Raton

Pirtle completed the $42.5 million West Boca Raton Community High School for the Palm Beach County School District more than four months ahead of schedule. On this project, it paired with Song & Associates Inc. of West Palm Beach.

"Song & Associates had extensive experience and relationships with the school district of Palm Beach County, and they also did a lot of preliminary work to develop a plan to respond to this request for proposals," said Pirtle Vice President Mike Geary.

Rodney Crockett, project manager for Song, said the project went well, considering the unusually short timeframe. The team received the contract in July 2002, and the 330,000-sq.-ft., tilt-wall project broke ground in September of that year. It will provide space for 1,917 students.

This school has a two-story, 12-building, courtyard-style campus. Unlike the Broward County project, Song developed a completely new design for the unique triangularly shaped West Boca site.

"We, as the design-builder, and our partner Song had to be creative to come up with a site solution that would maximize the use of the site while maintaining school operations that would be practical once the school opened," Geary said.

Before proceeding, Song met with nearby property owners, seeking their suggestions. Several large developments are located in the surrounding area.

"They are pretty sensitive about what goes in their community," Crockett said. "The school fits in the neighborhood and has a nice upscale look, with a curved, covered entry with columns and palm trees."

Tom Johns, director of program management for Palm Beach County schools, said the land acquisition was an issue, but the school district ultimately reached an agreement with the county to purchase low-lying land adjacent to a future park. Crews moved 250,000 cu. yds. of dirt to fill in the school site.

"We were able to take fill [and create] a lake at the park," Johns said. "It turned out to be a good project, both as a design-build and in our dealing with the county."

The Palm Beach district uses a design-build approach for about 10 percent of its projects. The Pirtle bid came in $4 million less than the next lowest bidder on West Boca.

"The price of a design-build project has a lot to do with the design," Carty said. "We had a very efficient design, and that was the single biggest difference in the pricing."

Design-build projects represent about 40 percent of Pirtle's contracts. "One advantage we feel as design-builders is that we have a direct relationship with the architect," Geary said. "As a result, we are able to persuade them to be more responsive to the needs of the construction component."

As with the Broward job, construction proceeded uneventfully at West Boca.

USEFUL SOURCES:

Palm Beach County School District - West Boca Raton Community High School http://165.161.3.47/mpr/status_report.cfm?proj_id=40

Broward County Public Schools - Coral Glades High School
http://www.browardschools.com/district/archive/archive52.htm