News Item #1639

An article by Mark Polston, a managing director at WSP, describes how the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet has built and scaled an “alternative delivery” program since 2021, working with WSP. Instead of the traditional design-bid-build sequence, these projects bring contractors in during design. With progressive design-build, one team designs and builds and the price is set only after scope and risks are worked out together. With construction manager/general contractor (CM/GC), the designer and contractor are hired separately but the contractor advises on cost, constructability and schedule during design. The article says KYTC's main goals were faster schedules and more flexibility, for example moving ahead before right-of-way and scope are fully settled.

The article is not an independent news story: it is an “insights” piece by WSP, an engineering firm that has worked with KYTC on the program.

The piece credits five practices:

1. Running alternative delivery as a program, with standard procurement documents and contract templates, rather than project by project.
2. Matching the method to each project: progressive design-build where scope needed to change over time, CM/GC for complex, high-risk work.
3. Using the methods specifically to speed up schedules.
4. Assigning each risk to the party best able to manage it, tracked in shared risk registers.
5. Supplementing a lean staff with outside experts, plus a dedicated Alternative Delivery Program Manager.

Results cited include a completed progressive design-build project on US 421 in rural Harlan County (its ribbon cutting was held Oct. 13) and three more well into construction: the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway, KY 8, and a wrong-way driving initiative. The I-65 Central Corridor project in Louisville is identified as Kentucky's first CM/GC project. These projects range from $15 million to $450 million.

Sources:

• WSP: Building a Successful Alternative Delivery Program