September/October 2016

NSPE Today
New Edition of Design-Build Documents Released

The Engineers Joint Contract Documents Committee has released a new edition of its design-build family of documents.

“It became apparent that the design-build delivery system was becoming more and more of a choice for delivery of construction projects, no matter what kind,” says EJCDC Design-Build Chairman William Beery, P.E., F.NSPE.

Last updated in 2009, the design-build family of documents has undergone a substantial overhaul. The 2016 edition includes nine all-new documents and six existing documents that were moderately to extensively revised, as well as EJCDC’s 2015 teaming agreement D-580.

“When the EJCDC design-build set of documents was first prepared back in the 1990s, there were very few states that allowed design-build as the delivery method for public construction,” says EJCDC Legal Counsel Hugh Anderson. However, that has changed over the course of the last 25 years, and as of 2016, there are only three states where use of the design-build delivery method for public construction projects is strongly restricted, according to the Design-Build Institute of America. In the remainder of states it’s a widely permitted option.

“There’s also an emerging trend of states that expressly allow selection of the design-builder to occur using a qualifications-based system … and also then allowing for the determination of a fair final construction price using a progressive system of pricing that’s done after the design-builder is already selected and under contract,” Anderson says. “And one of the things that we developed is a progressive design-build agreement that addresses that type of design-build.”

The documents that have been updated from the 2009 edition include:

• D-500, Agreement between Owner and Owner’s Consultant;
• D-505, Agreement between Design-Builder and Engineer;
• D-520, Agreement between Owner and Design-Builder (Stipulated Price);
• D-525, Agreement between Owner and Design-Builder (Cost-Plus);
• D-610, Design-Build Performance Bond; and
• D-615, Design-Build Payment Bond.

The nine all-new documents are the first of their kind in the design-build industry.  They include:

• D-110, Guide to Request for Qualifications for Design-Build Project;
• D-111, Guide to Request for Proposals for Design-Build Project;
• D-425, Price Proposal Form for Design-Build Project;
• D-512, Agreement between Owner and Design-Builder for Progressive Design-Build;
• D-523, Construction Subcontract for Design-Build Project;
• D-620, Design-Builder’s Application 
for Payment;
• D-800, Guide to the Preparation of Supplementary Conditions;
• D-940, Work Change Directive for Design-Build Project; and
• D-941, Change Order for Design-
Build Project.

NSPE members receive a 50% discount on all of the documents, which can be purchased at www.nspe.org/ejcdc.