The following excerpts appeared in Engineering News-Record on April 2, 2025. To read the full article (may require subscription), click here.

LA Light Rail Project Officials Drop Design-Build for CMAR – Engineering News-Record

By Greg Aragon

April 2, 2025

[excerpts]:

The Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority in charge of the Gold Line light rail project in Southern California announced it is canceling its current design-build procurement delivery method on the 3.2-mile Pomona-Montclair segment and is shifting to construction manager-at-risk (CMAR).

…

Kiewit’s final bid was slightly above $994 million, 54% higher than the Authority’s most conservative independent cost estimate (ICE) of $645.6 million, and it is “significantly out of sync with the contracting industry’s chief economist, whose presentation earlier this month confirmed market assumptions in the agency’s independent cost estimates,” says authority spokesperson Lisa Levy Buch.

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“The Authority believes that pivoting to the new plan of delivering the project using CMAR will reduce unnecessary risk money that is added by bidders by advancing the design to eliminate unknowns, while ensuring the design is constructable and takes advantage of as many cost savings ideas as possible,” she says. “CMAR does that by having the designer work alongside the CM; but the CM doesn’t have to bid the job until design is nearly to 100%, so they help make sure we take advantage of all avenues to save money, while conducting estimates periodically to make sure we are staying as close to our budget as possible for construction. The CM is working to have the design match the budget.”

The CMAR will also provide the opportunity to give the Authority a guaranteed price to complete the work once the design gets to about 80-90%. It may also be able to complete early projects that reduce risk for major construction once it gets underway.

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