Small Office, Big Job 4

[PengStruct]

An architect has a 3 story, 100,000ft2 school project with parking at the ground level with a 2nd floor pedestrian bridge connecting it to an existing building. I'm a one-man office and have been up and running for 1.5 years after working in design offices for 10 years with about 7 years of well rounded design experience.

Would I be biting off more than I could chew with this job? Much of my past experience is renovation work old brick buildings however I have designed 2 new low rise steel structures and one mid-rise concrete structure. I'm confident that I could handle the technical aspects but being a one-man office and putting all my eggs in this one basket seems like it may be a bad idea.

Any other small guys out there have experience with this situation? Should I stick with the small projects and keep it simple?

 

[SteelPE]

I was going to avoid this thread but then I received a call today and decided to add to the discussion.

I helped design a roof repair a vocational school that had a fire in their wood shop. The project was basically removing damaged joists and replacing them with new ones. The project was suppose to take about 30-60 days to complete..... it took 18 months. It is now 2.5 years later and I just received a call about the repair which was completed 1 year ago.

Keep this in mind when dealing with your project.

 

[Powerkem]

Hi all. I just started using eng-tips.
KootK, you mentioned "design collaboratives". We were planning on trying this route to compete for larger jobs. Does anyone know of a reputable collaborative I can contact to get tips. Our firm is electrical, but the idea is the same.

 

[BadgerPE]

PengStruct,

Any update on your decision for this one?

 

[PengStruct]

BadgerPE,

There is a little time before the project will start so I'm still talking with the architect informally about the possibility of doing the work. I'm also trying to find the time to do some preliminary analysis and code research before I get serious with a proposal. I'll check in again later. Thanks all, the feedback from this forum is hugely appreciated.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

Good luck.

Maine Professional and Structural Engineer.

http://www.fepc.us

 

[Guastavino]

PengStruct,

I am also a one-man shop. It's my experience that my clients like the one-man shops over the bigger firms because they get things done more quickly. Seems counterintuitive at first, but I was in a bigger firm and I understand why, other project managers distract your CAD folks, etc. If it was me, and I felt comfortable with the technical aspects, I would welcome the project. Worst case you might have some long days, but its a great resume building project. The fact that you are concerned about taking it on shows that you have some character as well. In other words, if you didn't care, you would just sign up on board without giving it much thought. I often find that those that question themselves all the time, aren't the ones that should be questioning themselves all the time.

All the best,

Nick

 

[SAIL3]

I try to culivate repeat customers and this project sounds like a one-time deal....the success of the project in the OP's situation will be influenced greatly by the schedule of the project...so I would make sure I am comfortable with it before I would commit to this project...

 

[steellion]

Do you have adequate liability insurance to cover a project that is substantially larger than what you typically do?

 

[agfengineer]

It has been said that as a small firm you spend most days hunting elk, but you usually end up eating squirrel. I would add the caviate (from experience) that you have to be careful when you catch an elk: They can kick a lot harder than a squirrel.

There are more issues to consider than has been flushed out in your email and many good questions have been raised. I would add that you need to consider the contract that you can negotiate carefully with respect to those things that you can not control. Chief among them are the management practices of your client (the architect) and more importantly, the jurisdictional review expectations. I have been burned on both of these items in the past and subsequently lost my tail on what should have been marquee jobs. Something that is always overlooked by small firms when trying to move into more significant projects or clients: The client is always going to try to control the contract to limit or eliminate risk on their part. If a client came to you with a silly deck job you would insist on controlling the fee to account for schedule, quality of the drawings you are provided to design from, review jurisdiction, and contractor, after all, you are perfectly capable of estimating the work involved in a small project like this, you know where you could lose time and increase your exposure to liability and the last thing you want to do is lose your tail on a little deck job, right? You need to carry the same attitude into the larger projects, believe me, the more sophisticated clients are aware of these risks and they are going to insist that you carry the risk, not them.

I am in the US, so these "ball park" estimates are for my market:

Based on your description:

1. You should be in a fee range of 1% to 1.5% of construction cost.
2. This sounds like a complex job with significant interaction between structure types and an existing building. I suspect that you should be budgeting something like 300-400 hours in design. Maybe more.
3. A complex building in a difficult seismic zone can bring complex analysis demands. You may have the expertise to take on these challenges, but, can you do so efficiently or is it going to eat up all your budget.
4. You can expect to put together a drawing set somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30 sheets.
5. Your clients are likely going to be working in Revit, are you prepared to do so? Efficiently?
6. Plan review can be significant on complex school jobs, If you are in California you could be spending another 100+ hours getting this through plan review and this will come at you with little control of the schedule and with the demand that you drop EVERYTHING to commit to getting through plan review. (Note, this is something you have NO control over and which will become substantially worse if your client insists on submitting the job in a rush (which means less complete)).
7. The commitment through construction can be dependent on a number of things that are also out of your control, most importantly, the quality of the contractor and building inspector. The last school job that I did in California was a 30,000 sf gym / dining commons / wrestling room, simpler than the project that you proposed. The job generated 600+ RFI's about half of which required submittal, review, and approval by the jurisdiction. We easily spent as much time in construction support as we did in design.

Based on your description of the project and your stated experience, I would steer clear of this one. However, if you choose to take it on, I hope that this little diatribe helps you do so with a better understanding of what is in front of you.