GUEST COLUMN: Revisiting design/build

The arguments for and against the design/build concept are not new, and they’re not lost on me. As an architect and president of a course contracting firm, I’ve seen the issue from all possible vantage points during my more than 40 years in the business of golf design and course construction. However, the golf industry’s changing fortunes – fewer new openings, more foreclosures, a global economic crisis that is sure to depress rounds and result in membership loss – should oblige everyone to revisit his or her preconceptions regarding design/build.

We see the design/build issue from all sides because we’re not proprietary about the course design and/or construction projects either Lohmann Golf Designs or Golf Creations undertake. In other words, Golf Creations has built many Lohmann designs and it has built the designs of other architects. In fact, we just finished a renovation by architect Arthur Hills (Westmoreland Country Club in Chicago) and we’re building a Nicklaus design right now (Fyre Lake National Golf Club & Marina in Sherrard, Ill.).

By the same token, LGD has worked with many other contractors. However, with all our experiences we still feel the design/build model is the most efficient.

The arguments for design/build are simple: By combining design and construction under one roof, significant economies are realized. By dealing with a single design/build vendor, there’s only one profit margin to consider when the job is bid/priced – as opposed to one for the designer and another for the contractor. I would also argue there is an economy and effectiveness of communication when a design change is made in the field. This sort of "change order," the accumulation of which has ruined many a budget, is simply part of the design/build process and doesn’t cost the client or developer anything extra.

What’s more, the nuances of these changes or solutions made in the field are less likely to be lost in translation because designer and builder are working so closely together.

This is not the way golf courses have traditionally been built. For decades, there has existed an almost adversarial relationship between the designer and the contractor. As a sort of check and balance, the architect is supposed to be keeping an eye on the contractor – making sure he does his job quickly and efficiently, so as not to waste the owner’s money. At the same time, the contractor is keeping an eye on the architect and his plans – making sure those ideas, those plans, those change orders aren’t also going to cost the owner money.

Critics of design/build claim that this supervision does not exist when the architect and contractor are under one roof, but that’s not the case. It’s actually easier to monitor against overruns when the entire team is working with a shared philosophy, and from the same budgetary pool.

I honestly believe that both systems work, and have been proven to work, but that the older, traditional system – the separation of powers – is ultimately less efficient. There are some jobs that will always be built on the old model, such as bigger-budget, new course construction, the projects that cover more disciplines than just golf (e.g., roads, real estate, landscaping).

However, course-specific new construction and renovation jobs of any size are an increasingly good fit for design/build, because these projects are refined enough that a qualified single entity can handle them. A perfect example of this dynamic is the recent design/build renovation we completed at Jefferson City Country Club in Jefferson City, Mo. We were able to do that job more efficiently (let’s just say it: cheaper) than any individual architect and individual contractor could have done it in collaboration, hands down. Full stop.

Ultimately, any developer or club investing in a renovation master plan like Jeff City, where we rebuilt all 18 greens last fall, must already have a level of comfort and trust with the provider of that design and/or construction service. We established this trust early on in the process with the club’s leaders, and that translated to an economical, under-budget job that far exceeded their expectations. The synergy we created there with design/build cannot be equaled by other models.

We’re seeing the same positive response to this approach in the sports field industry, where professional and collegiate programs are requesting unique solutions to meet their limited budgets. Lohmann Sports Fields, our sports field construction division, recently completed renovations on the Notre Dame football field and at the Fifth Third Ballpark (home of the Single A West Michigan Whitecaps) where we streamlined their budgets by developing renovation solutions in-house. It’s the same successful model we continue to use in golf, and its merits are compounded in an economy like this one.

We’ve been doing this for more than 20 years, so we have a pretty thorough and broad perspective. I would close with this: We’ve developed more than just an insight into design/build. This interaction with so many architects and contractors has benefited our perspective and our skill set. Our construction teams have learned from every outside architect they have ever worked with, and LGD has learned from every outside contractor it has worked with.

At the end of the day, we bring it all back home, share that information and learn some more – from each other. GCI