Over the past several years, the water/wastewater industry sector has been steadily adopting Progressive Design-Build (PDB), and now the transportation sector is starting to do the same. Mortenson is currently delivering the first public Progressive Design-Build project in Oregon, the City of the Dalles Waste Water Treatment Plant Expansion.

What is Progressive Design-Build?

According to the Design-Build institute of America:

Progressive Design-Build (PDB) facilitates involvement of the design-build team during the earliest stages of the owner’s project development, ensuring they are part of the project team developing design solutions. This promotes the greatest amount of collaboration between the three key players in a construction contract – the owner, the designer and the contractor.

While a project design is usually 35 percent complete (or more) by the time a design-builder is procured in the traditional two-step design-build process, PDB adds the design-builder to the owner’s team even earlier in the design phase. When the design is somewhere between 50 and 75 percent complete, the design-builder issues a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP).

How can Progressive Design-Build improve the delivery of your project?