Division 01
Design-build
One firm draws it and builds it. A detail that will not build gets caught at the drawing board by the person who would have had to install it — and when it is missed, there is nobody to argue with about whose fault it was.
Typical span 10–22 months
01The work
This is not a service so much as a way of being organised, and the case for it is specific enough to be argued rather than asserted.
Under design-bid-build, the sequence is: an architect designs, the set goes out, contractors bid what is drawn, and one is awarded. Everything the set did not say, or said in a way that cannot be built, surfaces on site as a request for information and resolves as a change order. Nobody has behaved badly. The architect drew what they drew, the contractor bid what was drawn, and the difference between them is a real cost that lands on the owner because it belongs to neither party.
When the same firm draws and builds, that gap is ours. There is no request for information to send, no scope argument to have, and — this is the part owners most often miss — no commercial incentive to let a vague detail through in the hope that it becomes a change order later. A contractor bidding a drawing set has that incentive whether or not they act on it. We do not have it, because the vague detail is our own and we would be paying for it.
The person who draws the parapet flashing works thirty feet from the person who has to make it keep water out, and they have both been in this building for years. That proximity is the entire product.
What it costs you is competitive price tension on a complete set, and that is a genuine trade-off rather than a footnote. The delivery page sets out all three methods and when each one wins, including the cases where design-bid-build is plainly the better answer.
It does not remove the unknowns in the ground, it does not shorten the plan-review queue, and it does not make a building cheaper per square foot than a well-run competitive bid on a complete set. What it removes is the cost of the gap between drawing and building, and the weeks spent resolving it. Anybody promising more than that is overselling the method.
Establish these first
- What the building is for
- Not the square footage — the use. The use decides the code path, the occupancy, the parking, and half the cost.
- The site, or candidate sites
- Zoning, utilities to the property line, access, and whether anybody has a geotechnical report. That last one moves more money than anything else at this stage.
- The date you need to be in it
- And what happens if you are not. A lease expiry and a preference produce different projects.
- The budget you have, honestly
- Design-build only works if the number is real from the start. A budget disclosed at 90% design is a redesign.
- Who decides
- One named person, or a board with a meeting schedule. The second is fine and it has to be in the programme.
What you receive
Permit set, schedule of values, closeout package, as-builts, O&M manuals
In the format your records require, agreed at proposal stage rather than discovered at closeout. The full list is on closeout and what you receive.
01.1Values
What this division costs
Planning ranges, wide on purpose. The full schedule with every division on it, and the soft costs that sit on top of any construction number, is on the budgets page.
| Div | Item | Unit | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01.10 | Programming and feasibilityUse, site test fit, order-of-magnitude budget | LS | $6,500–$28,000 |
| 01.20 | Schematic designPlans, elevations, outline specification, refined budget | LS | $18,000–$85,000 |
| 01.30 | Design development and permit setCoordinated set through to submission | LS | $45,000–$240,000 |
| 01.40 | Structural engineeringEngaged consultant, stamped | LS | $12,000–$70,000 |
| 01.50 | MEP engineeringMechanical, electrical, plumbing design | LS | $15,000–$90,000 |
| 01.60 | Civil engineering and site designGrading, drainage, utilities, entitlement support | LS | $14,000–$95,000 |
| 01.70 | Design fee, as a share of constructionWhere design and construction are one contract | PCT | 5%–9% |
| 01.90 | ConstructionSee the building-type ranges on the budgets page | LS | by scope |
Units are SF square foot of gross building area unless stated, LF linear foot, CY cubic yard, SY square yard, SQ roofing square (100 SF), EA each, LS lump sum, PCT a percentage of construction cost. Division references are for this document only and are not CSI MasterFormat numbers.
Figures are USD planning ranges for commercial construction in the Pikes Peak region. They exclude land, design fees where separately engaged, permit and tap fees, furnishings, equipment and any applicable tax, and they assume normal site conditions, normal soils and a buildable season. They are published so an owner can size a project before there is a drawing to price. They are planning ranges, not a bid. Reviewed October 2026. A price for your project comes from a proposal against a defined scope. See the disclaimer.
01.2Questions
Questions about this division
Specific to this kind of work. The general ones — contracts, pay applications, retainage, change orders, insurance, bonding — are on the FAQ page.
Is design-build more expensive than bidding it?
On the construction number alone, sometimes marginally, because you give up competitive price tension on a complete set. On total project cost, usually less, because the change orders that come from drawing gaps do not happen and the schedule is shorter. The honest version is that it depends on how well-defined your project is: a simple warehouse on a clean site with a good architect is a fine candidate for competitive bidding, and a complicated renovation is not.
When is the price actually fixed?
At the guaranteed maximum price, which is agreed at an agreed point in design — typically once the set is developed enough to price properly but before it is finished. Before that you have an order-of-magnitude budget that gets refined at each design stage, and we tell you at each one whether the number is holding. An owner who needs a fixed price before any design exists is asking for something no method can honestly provide.
Do we lose control of the design?
No, and this is the objection worth taking seriously because it is sometimes true elsewhere. You approve at each stage and nothing proceeds without that approval. What changes is that when you ask for something, the person who tells you what it costs and the person who drew it are in the same conversation — so the answer arrives in a day rather than in a fortnight of correspondence. If you want an independent architect advocating for you against the builder, that is a legitimate preference and design-bid-build is how you get it.
Can we hire our own architect and still use you?
Yes, routinely, and it is a perfectly good arrangement. We build to other architects’ sets as a general contractor and we are happy to. What we would ask for is to be brought in during design rather than at bid, because almost all of the value we add to somebody else’s set is constructability review while it is still cheap to change.
00The rest
The other four divisions
Ground-up commercial and institutional buildings in the Pikes Peak region — aviation, retail, automotive and industrial — with the site work and utilities self-performed.
- You receive
- Full drawing set, schedule of values, commissioning record, closeout package
Fitting out a shell or an existing space against a lease date that has already been signed. The work letter usually matters more than anything in the drawings.
- You receive
- Permit set, landlord sign-offs, certificate of occupancy, closeout package
Expanding or rebuilding a facility that has to keep operating. The phasing plan is the project; the construction is the easy half.
- You receive
- Permit set, phasing plan, schedule of values, closeout package
Earthwork, grading, utilities, paving and drainage, performed by our own crews with our own equipment and our own trucking — which is why the schedule holds.
- You receive
- Compaction and materials test records, as-built survey, utility sign-offs
Describe the building you need
What it is for, roughly how big, where it would go, and when you need to be in it. On a first call we can usually give you a realistic per-square-foot range, a realistic end date, and an honest answer about whether a firm this size is the right one for it.
T-Bone Construction, Inc. · 1310 Ford St, Colorado Springs, CO 80915