Abstract
Over the past decade construction expenditures for education have reached approximately $350 billion with $195 billion of that total spent on K-12 public schools. Public funding through state and local taxes is the primary source of support for construction and school districts are charged with spending these dollars wisely. Within the confines of procurement statutes school districts must select a delivery method that best suits their needs. Two commonly used delivery methods are Design-Bid-Build and Construction Manager at Risk (CM at Risk). This paper examines qualitative and quantitative data collected from one hundred thirty-seven new K-12 school projects constructed in the southeast. Eighty-six of the 137 projects in the sample were constructed utilizing the Design Bid-Build delivery method and the remaining fifty-one projects were built using the CM at Risk delivery method. The findings are that District Managers believe that using CM at Risk will lower project cost, reduce schedule duration, and improve quality. However, improvements in quality with CM at Risk are largely based upon the perceptions of District Managers. The vast majority of District Managers using either delivery method was satisfied with both the product and service quality delivered on their projects. District Managers felt that the use of CM at Risk reduced project duration, but based on analysis of project data neither delivery method proved to be superior in reducing schedule duration or schedule growth. District Managers also believed that utilizing CM at Risk reduced project cost, but analysis of project data confirmed the opposite. The use of CM at Risk actually increased cost.
Recommended Citation
Carpenter, Noel and Bausman, Dennis C.
(2016)
"Comparing Owner Perceptions vs. Performance Reality on Construction Management at Risk Public School Projects,"
The Professional Constructor: Vol. 41:
No.
1, Article 4.
Available at:
https://open.clemson.edu/aic-journal/vol41/iss1/4
