There has been debate in the press over general contracting and "contract management" with respect to the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. As a practitioner and an educator in the construction industry for the last 25 years, I still found the discussion confusing.

At issue is the project delivery method, and there's a time and place for each of them; the construction process is transient and each project is unique. The cookie-cutter approach favored by manufacturers making thousands of the same items in a controlled environment simply does not apply to construction.

Design, bid, build is the traditional delivery process favored by most public agencies. In this process, the owner's architect completes the design, the owners advertise the project bid and award it to the lowest responsive bidder. The advantage is that bids are open and competitive and the owner is generally assured of receiving a low price. The downside is that until bid day, no one is sure the project will be within budget. There have been multiple instances over the last 18 months where public agencies have come in 20 percent to 25 percent over budget. The name of the game in this process is change orders -- the general contractor asks for more money when the owner changes and the inevitable design errors, omissions and ambiguities are uncovered during the preliminary submittal process.

Negotiated guaranteed maximum price contract is the delivery favored by many private owners. In this method, the owner hires a general contractor based on qualifications well in advance of the bidding. General contractors who pursue this type of work rely on their reputation and referrals for future work. Having a contractor on the team providing cost estimating, scheduling and constructibility analyses, allowing for midcourse corrections during design as opposed to during construction, generally leads to the lowest final cost and highest quality achievable. The GMP puts a cap on the contract amount, and the owner pays for the actual costs incurred by the contractor after a final audit. This is the method used when I was the senior vice president, project management of Walt Disney Concert Hall Inc., and we completed perhaps the most anatomically complex project with the highest-quality acoustics and finishes in the world.

Multiprime construction is a hybrid of these two approaches. Since most public agencies are subject to public contracting laws requiring open bids that preclude the negotiated GMP process, many have turned to this method to achieve some of the advantages of both. Under this scenario, the owner hires a construction management firm based on qualifications, during the preconstruction process. The CM acts like a general contractor, but the trade contractors contract directly with the owner (making them prime contractors). The primes are actively managed by the CM, which staffs the project as would a general contractor. The major advantage is that its preconstruction input is available and the CM's compensation is not tied to the final contract amount. In fact, the change-order history of a CM is considered in the selection process for future work.

My firm is representing owners on six projects currently, and we have recommended and are using all three of the delivery methods cited above. There is no right or wrong way, as each project demands individual evaluation. My understanding is that the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza was constructed with the multiprime delivery (contract manager is a misnomer). It is not clear whether the leaks were a result of faulty workmanship, defective materials or design errors, but I read the city has recovered $4.7 million from the various entities for repairs. The flaw was not in the delivery method chosen.