| Author |
Message |
slund (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 08:59 am: |    |
Our firm has been using non-refundable fees for Bidding Documents for some time now. It has caused an increase in subcontractors searching for alternate ways to get their piece of information, without purchasing full sets. This results in increased phone calls/questions from subs and errors in their bids due to incomplete information. We require everyone to make their bids based on review of complete sets of documents, but in reality that does not happen.
I am curious as to what other archtiectural firms do about refundable/nonrefundable fees, as we are told by contractors that other firms are refundable. We would then have to put the cost of reproduction back on the owners. |
Richard L Matteo, AIA, CSI, CCS
Senior Member
Username: rlmat
Post Number: 95
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 09:49 am: | |
The firm I work for prefers non-refundable deposits for 2 reasons. 1) It saves on bookkeeping. 2) Most of the sets that are returned for deposit refund are unusable and are normally tossed.
Drawings are generally also available at our offices or the Owner's and in Dodge plan rooms.
Use of the plan rooms affords bidders access to the complete set of construction documents. |
John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA
Senior Member
Username: bunzick
Post Number: 361
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 09:49 am: | |
Have done it both ways, but in all cases, the costs of reproduction falls on the project owner. (I hope that is the case in your projects.) Pros of refundable deposits are that bidders have better access to the documents, it makes it more affordable, extra sets can be given to the GC at start of construction. Cons are that can't be sure documents aren't marked up or damaged, more sets may have to be printed, it's a pain to keep track of the deposits. However, I'm finding more often that owners have decided that the bidders must purchase the sets. A new development is the on-line plan room, where bidders can register and look at the sets on line, and order hard copy at their own expense if they want them. Yeh, I know that this will raise a whole host of concerns about protection of digital content, but you got to know that this is inevitably where we're going to end up. |
William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS
Senior Member
Username: wpegues
Post Number: 390
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 09:55 am: | |
I may be a regional or smaller area distinction.
Here in DC, though we only do about 2 to 3 bid projects a year, I would have to go back about 10 years or so to see a project where the costs were refundable. And on those, we did not handle it at all. Any refunds were handled directly by the Owner, not through the architect.
Our Dallas TX office which has been running now about 6 or 7 years also has not done refundable documents.
We do have some owners who write and distribute their own 'bid package' documents, and we almost never get a chance to even see those. They may do it - but again, that would mean even fewer projects.
When we put a project out as a bid project, it is also stated that its the responsibility of the general contractor to assure that appropriate documents are distributed, not us.
We also do not take calls or questions from subs - only general contractors.
William |
Brett M. Wilbur
Senior Member
Username: brett
Post Number: 32
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 10:48 am: | |
We have an in-house reproduction department manned and operated by Ridgeway's. I say this because this helps the administration and bookkeeping and delivery of bid documents. We require a refundable deposit. We believe we will get more competition, and therefore better pricing, if we refund the deposits to unsuccessful contractors. We reuse the returned documents by providing them to the successful contractor for construction purposes, along with any modifications made during the proposal stage. This also keeps reproduction costs down. |
Wayne Yancey
Senior Member
Username: wyancey
Post Number: 9
Registered: 05-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 12:17 pm: | |
I have specified "refundable deposits" for private work. If the Bid Documents are returned in reusable condition, the deposit is refunded. If not, deposit is not refunded at our discretion. Some public agencies provide Bidding Document(s) free of charge.
We accept deposits in check or cash. We used to request "certified check" but the bidders whined. The amount of the deposit equals the cost of reproduction.
We use our repro house to manage the distribution of Bidding Documents and deposits. All repro houses in our area promote and provide this level of service. They provide reports on the distribution at regular intervals or upon request. Typically, our bid periods do not exceed 4 weeks.
Some of our clients set up accounts directly with the repro house eliminating the need for the A/E to handle invoices or add markups for handling. This gives the Owner the opportunity to track cost of reproduction.
On small rehab projects, our Bidding Documents are on 8.5 by 11 (project manual) and 11 x 17 (detail packages). We provide one complete set free of charge to the invited bidders only. Invited bidders, subtrades, and suppliers may purchase "complete sets only" from the repro house for the cost of reproduction. |
George A. Everding, AIA, CCS, CSI
Senior Member
Username: geverding
Post Number: 34
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 12:17 pm: | |
Part of the theory of refundable deposits for bid sets was that the owner, who ultimately bears the cost of reproduction, would benefit by being able to give the returned bid sets to the GC for use constructing the project. Architects traditionally handled distribution of documents to bidders as a service to the owner. In fact, I remember seeing floor plans of Sullivan’s office in the Auditorium Building showing a “Plan Room” and a “Contractor Waiting Room” so apparently the Architect was the F.W.Dodge of 100 years ago.
In today’s world increasingly dominated by fast track, design build, CMa or CMc and other non-traditional non-design-bid-build delivery systems, how many projects result in “Bid Set” = “Contract Document” any more? Even if the drawings and project manual are unmodified, they never come back from the bidders in the pristine unmarked condition they were in when they were issued.
In reality, a “non-refundable deposit” is a euphemism for a sale. It is much more straightforward to sell plans to bidders. This takes the cost out of the Owner’s pocket (although we assume it gets built into the bid price), and puts the responsibility for distribution and tracking with the reprographic professional. Unless the A/E has an in house department as Brett Wilbur mentions, the bookkeeping and managing of printing is an additional and unwanted burden.
The troubling issue with open sale of plans by a reprographics house is how do we prevent a bidder from only buying (and examining) some but not all relevant sheets? I like William Pegues’s answer about keeping the responsibility for assuring complete or appropriate distribution with the general contractor, where it belongs. And I guess in the brave new electronic world, the complete set of documents is available to all, and tracking of what is actually examined can be automatic.
When I was in an A/E Project Manager’s role a few years ago, I was very happy to use our reprographic professionals to manage the documents. The process of distribution, addenda, and record keeping is much simpler. Owners appreciated the periodic and final reports on who was buying what, and it kept the costs of reproduction down. I’m convinced that refundable deposits are headed to the scrap heap of history, just like “Plan Rooms” and “Contractor Waiting Rooms” in architect’s offices. |
John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA
Senior Member
Username: bunzick
Post Number: 362
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 12:24 pm: | |
I think the answer to George Everding,s question on how to prevent bidders from buying only a portion of the documents is to have a requirement with the repro house that they can't sell them that way. This should not be a problem, becasue they do not control the copyright, and probably are willing to comply. Anyone with experience in this? |
John McGrann
Senior Member
Username: jmcgrann
Post Number: 48
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 01:01 pm: | |
Most of our work is in the private sector, and bid projects are typically limited to invited bidders. We provide each bidder with a minimal number of full sets and an authorization to authorize the reproduction house to print whatever they need. Subs obtain documents through one of the invited bidders by whatever arrangement they see fit. The approach lets the invited bidders control subcontract scopes and keeps us out of the document deposit / document sales business.
For public work we often have to deal with deposits, and our preference it to hold a deposit check that is returned directly when we get the documents back. If the documents need to be shipped, we ask for pre-paid shipping by a separate instrument. We don’t want the expense of running the deposits through our books and being subject to BPOL and sales tax liabilities. |
David J. Wyatt
Senior Member
Username: dave_wyatt_csi_cca_ccca
Post Number: 16
Registered: 09-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 01:28 pm: | |
My experience is similar to that of John McGrann.
The State Architect's Office in Ohio has recently announced it will no longer support the deposit/refund system. Instead, anyone who wants a set of documents for a project will have to purchase them.
For small projects (under 1/2 million) I expect the policy will curtail the number of prospective bidders who normally take out document sets. But it may encourage those same contractors to rely more upon construction reporting services and trade associations that maintain plan rooms. This could be good for F.W. Dodge, builder's exchanges, and subcontractor associations. |
Wayne Yancey
Senior Member
Username: wyancey
Post Number: 11
Registered: 05-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 01:52 pm: | |
George,
I have used the repro house for both public agency and private bid projects. The repro house is on strict orders to sell "complete sets only". Our intention is they will obtain the complete bid document set and nothing but the complete bid document set. To this point in time, it has proven successful. In theory, requiring non-GC bidders to purchase complete sets, may discourage unwanted/unqualified subtrade bidders and suppliers who have only some tools and a truck in their resume. One can alway hope.
Wayne |
Anne Whitacre, CCS CSI
Senior Member
Username: awhitacre
Post Number: 202
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 05:58 pm: | |
I concur with Wayne (and work in the same geographic area). I don't remember the last time I worked on a project where we distributed the documents; the typical in our area is that they are available from the repro house and the contractor has to specify which sheets (or full sets) that they want. In that way, its their entire responsibility if they have an incomplete set. and of course, the cost is entirely borne by the bidder.
The first office I worked in had a CA desk with a separate door, a rack of plans and project manuals and a strongbox for deposit checks. That room often did look like a plan room at times... |
Harold S. Woolard
Senior Member
Username: harold_woolard
Post Number: 12
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 09:35 pm: | |
I don't think most firms have the volume of work as Brett Wilber's firm does, I agree with some of you, but I counted 34 bidders on a couple of schools that PBK had out to bid, not to mention I seen them have 78 jobs going at one time. This is when it takes an in house reproduction department. |
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