In our state, Iowa, the legislature has mandated that paper plans be made available for all public projects to all contractors for no more than a $250 deposit so we have a some different conditions than you encounter. We also have had some issues with plan rooms and reporting services, but not to the extent you have outlined. Our state also has electronic services through Master Builders and the state AIA.
We started posting our plans electronically to our website about 4 years ago. We still offer paper plans to everyone. Public bid projects are open to everyone and private bid projects require an access code to reach. When you enter the website there is a bidding button you can use to reach the documents area.
We have seen at least a 30% decrease in requests for plans since starting this service.
Contractors like to come into the site and look at the plans to determine if they want to bid on the plans before they order plans, many suppliers bid right from the computer files, and some contractors download and print their plans at either reduced or full scale.
We put disclaimers in our bid documents that the paper plans still govern but to date have had not problem with files not printing right. Some owners even access the final plans this way.
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David Martin AIA
President
Martin Gardner Architecture, P.C.
Marion IA
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