Arntz
Builders were selected by the Berkeley Unified School District because they were
the lowest bidders. The Berkeley
Unified School District bid the job out for subcontractors and chose the lowest
bidders. Arntz Builders were told
who they were going to be working with, a process that Arntz is familiar with
given that their work is primarily public works.
In the case of the steel fabrication, only two companies were willing to
bid the job given its complexity: Batrum-something
Steel in the San Francisco Bay Area and Rosco Steel in Montana.
They chose Rosco Steel, whose bid was lower, probably because they have
lower overhead costs for both labor and facilities/infrastructure.
All
changes that have occurred during construction are run by the owner, Berkeley
Unified School District, and the architect, ELS.
BUSD is informed of not only the possible changes, but also if it will
cost more, less, or result in no change in budget.
Jim Stone at ELS is usually called regarding any possible changes and the
solution is discussed verbally in person or over the phone.
The paper trail, request for information, follows as a way to get all
changes in writing but also to keep the project moving.
This is an unusual situation in which both the client and architect are
so close that it has become a truly joint effort with great communication lines.
Any design changes and clarifications slow the construction process.
In this case, any changes structurally had to be approved by DSA, which
slows down the process but is just part of doing public works.
Off-site
fabrication was employed due to issues of constructability and cost.
Some things just have to be done off site since it would be too cost
prohibitive to fabricate certain things here.
Measure twice, cut once approach is the approach taken to minimize
mistakes when dealing with prefabrication.
Sub-contractors try very hard to measure, check shop drawings and
re-measure before anything is fabricated. Therefore,
if something does not fit, it was probably measured wrong.
It was $4 million for just the steel work alone. It is a large, complicated project. None of the building products were unusual. It was just a more complicated assemblage of a wide range of commonly used construction materials. Occasionally conflict occurred where these systems or materials met. There were some conflicts in the integration of rebar for the concrete with the steel frame. If they could not get the rebar around the steel members, they had to increase the wall depth to get enough concrete coverage, which the architect sometimes overlooked, but it worked out well overall.