Small Project Design

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Project Delivery and Small Project Practitioners .
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I live in a small community and my practice is comprised almost entirely municipal/government work.  

Because of my location, I have used planning rooms as well as issuing plans from my office.  I have found that planning rooms never quite give out the correct information and, as they are a paid service, find contractors may or may not be receiving the information/updates.  Additionally, the time I'm taking to answer all the plan room requests for updates eats up a significant amount of time and most importantly, I'm never quite sure who is bidding my projects if contractors go to the plan rooms and don't contact me (Plan rooms won't release the information to me unless I subscribe!).

My dilemma is this:  I have been trying to go exclusively to electronic documents (which are free) rather that the "old school" deposit for documents and hoping they come back in usable condition and the massive amount of paper my clients pay for that goes unused once the project is awarded.  I request in every bid call that the Prime Contractor contact me via email so I can create a bidders list, this rarely happens.

So....for the past five years this is the system I have been using and a couple of things have been consistent:  I'm inundated with requests from plan rooms when an advertisement is released.  I hear from a few contractors directly.  I don't hear from a lot of contractors at all.  The end result is fewer contractors are bidding these projects.  I rarely have a a complete list of bidders, therefore addenda and other information may not be reaching interested contractors, ultimately this winnows the pool.

Forgive my rambling...the point:   I don't want to use plan rooms anymore, do I have any obligation to do so?  

I would like to write the advertisement and instructions that no paper documents will be issued and that interested contractors must contact me directly to receive a link to the documents (my clients are onboard with this). If contractors need paper documents they would bear the expense of printing the documents, that's their call.  

What I don't want, is to limit the pool of interested contractors.  What I do want is to know who is bidding and that they are getting the correct info...

What are your thoughts?  I certainly appreciate any comments and suggestions...Thanks to all!

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Kevin Robinson, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB
Architecture|Workshop LLC
Silver City NM
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Try QuestCDN. A lot of public agencies go through them for their bidding. They are a completely electronic service; they provide instant updates to the architect and owner of all new plan holders, instantly notify all plan holders when addenda are uploaded by the architect, and notify the owner and architect who has downloaded all addenda.

QuestCDN advertises when the plans are available (as well as the owner to normal legal notifications channels). For our most recent public project we also contacted contractors that we thought should be bidding on the project and recommended that they join QuestCDN - many already were members, and most that weren't joined and bid the project. Out of about 30 plan holders, only one requested a paper copy for which he was charged a non-refundable fee.

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F. John Barbour AIA
Shelter Architecture, LLC
Minneapolis MN
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-17-2014 18:44
From: Kevin Robinson
Subject: Bid Rooms

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Project Delivery and Small Project Practitioners .
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I live in a small community and my practice is comprised almost entirely municipal/government work.  

Because of my location, I have used planning rooms as well as issuing plans from my office.  I have found that planning rooms never quite give out the correct information and, as they are a paid service, find contractors may or may not be receiving the information/updates.  Additionally, the time I'm taking to answer all the plan room requests for updates eats up a significant amount of time and most importantly, I'm never quite sure who is bidding my projects if contractors go to the plan rooms and don't contact me (Plan rooms won't release the information to me unless I subscribe!).

My dilemma is this:  I have been trying to go exclusively to electronic documents (which are free) rather that the "old school" deposit for documents and hoping they come back in usable condition and the massive amount of paper my clients pay for that goes unused once the project is awarded.  I request in every bid call that the Prime Contractor contact me via email so I can create a bidders list, this rarely happens.

So....for the past five years this is the system I have been using and a couple of things have been consistent:  I'm inundated with requests from plan rooms when an advertisement is released.  I hear from a few contractors directly.  I don't hear from a lot of contractors at all.  The end result is fewer contractors are bidding these projects.  I rarely have a a complete list of bidders, therefore addenda and other information may not be reaching interested contractors, ultimately this winnows the pool.

Forgive my rambling...the point:   I don't want to use plan rooms anymore, do I have any obligation to do so?  

I would like to write the advertisement and instructions that no paper documents will be issued and that interested contractors must contact me directly to receive a link to the documents (my clients are onboard with this). If contractors need paper documents they would bear the expense of printing the documents, that's their call.  

What I don't want, is to limit the pool of interested contractors.  What I do want is to know who is bidding and that they are getting the correct info...

What are your thoughts?  I certainly appreciate any comments and suggestions...Thanks to all!

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Kevin Robinson, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB
Architecture|Workshop LLC
Silver City NM
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