Join us Wednesday, May 25 at 1:30 PM EDT

The 91短视频 annual convention included a session entitled 鈥淲ho鈥檚 on the Hook for Design Defects in Design-Build Projects.鈥 Fox Rothschild鈥檚 Dirk Haire, Les Synder of Infrastructure Construction Brightline West, and David Hecker of Kiewit presented. Attendees crowded into a standing-only room because more and more builders are facing design liability, especially design-builders on large infrastructure projects. The presentation highlighted how some owners abuse the submittal process on design-build jobs to make changes without compensating the builder with more time, money, or both. One project took a sample of owner comments and extrapolated that just one project generated over 15,000 submittals and generated over 110,000 comments of 鈥渃oncern鈥 or 鈥減reference.鈥

Michigan State University (MSU) is a forward-thinking public owner that uses ConsensusDocs standard construction contracts as the basis for its projects. At the Associated General Contractors of America (91短视频) annual conference held in Grapevine, Texas, MSU's STEM Teaching and Learning Facility was considered 鈥渢he most significant construction project of 2021鈥 by 91短视频. Granger Construction Company was the Construction Manager and a signatory party on the ConsensusDocs 500 contract. Granger received the association's top prize, Construction Risk Partners Build America Grand Award, and the award for the best construction management renovation project under $99 million.

Prices of materials and services used in new nonresidential construction leaped nearly 21 percent in April from year-ago levels, according to an analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America of government data released today. The association urged the Biden administration to provide relief to hard-hit employers by ending tariffs on key construction materials and reconsidering its recently proposed Buy America regulations that will make it harder for firms to find and pay for key construction materials.

In construction, alternative project delivery methods typically refer to design-build, construction management at-risk (CM@R or CMAR), and integrated project delivery (IPD). Design-build and CM@R have been commonly used for so long that it seems strange to call them 鈥渁lternatives.鈥 IPD and design-build are more written about as a subject matter. However, CM@R is just as popular as ever, and some practitioners see CM@R as the project delivery method that delivers project schedule towards completion the fastest. Experienced practitioners of CM@R like the ability to commence construction before all the design details for the entire project are determined. In Iowa, both chambers of the legislative body recently approved legislation, Senate Bill 183, that expands the authorization to use CM@R on public projects and explicitly disallows design-build for public projects. This would make Iowa one of two states banning design-build for all public projects joining North Dakota.

Pre-Conference Federal Contractor HR Workshop Presentations Accepted Also

DHS is ending the COVID-19 Temporary Policy for List B Identity Documents. Beginning May 1, employers will no longer be able to accept expired List B documents. DHS adopted the temporary policy in response to the difficulties many individuals experienced with renewing documents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that document-issuing authorities have reopened and/or provided alternatives to in-person renewals, DHS will end this flexibility. Starting May 1, 2022, employers must only accept unexpired List B documents. If an employee presented an expired List B document between May 1, 2020, and April 30, 2022, employers are required to update their Forms I-9 by July 31, 2022.