Church leaders understand the value of having a variety of ministries together under one roof. It wouldn’t make sense to have your children’s, youth, and adult ministries all taking place in different locations or run by different churches. It turns out that keeping everything under one roof is a sensible business model as well when it comes to church building and remodeling, and we’re seeing this happen more and more, with the spreading popularity of the Design-Build process.
What is Design-Build?
Design-Build construction is a project delivery system where the church issues a single contract to perform both architectural and construction services to a single company, such as The McKnight Group. Today forty percent of all nonresidential construction projects, in both the private and public sectors, are now using single-source project delivery, which is another name for Design-Build. This is up from just ten percent, twenty years ago.
How is Design-Build Different?
The traditional way of constructing a new church building, sometimes called Design-Bid-Build, is to have two contracts with two different companies. The first is an architect and engineering company, which develops plans for your church building. The church then approves the plans and creates a bidding process whereby builders compete for the second contract, to construct the church building itself, based on those plans.
The Benefits of Design-Build for your Church Building Project
The Design-Bid-Build process is still popular, but there are some clear benefits to the Design-Build process. As we noted in the church example above, having everything under one roof means that it’s easier to communicate about projects as they move along. This means architects can easily consult with their builder colleagues about the practicality and cost of something they are designing, and builders come to understand the ideas behind the architects’ designs, making the build go more smoothly.
Not All Design-Build Companies are Equal
It’s important to understand that not all Design-Build companies are alike. Some of them are really architectural firms that subcontract the construction process to another company, or a contractor that hires an architect for the design portion of the project. These different entities might—or might not—have experience working with each other. If they don’t have that solid experience, you don’t gain any of the benefits of a true Design-Build team.
To learn more about the benefits of the Design-Build process, and about The McKnight Group’s experience and expertise in this area, sign up today for one of our i3 webinars, or give us a call at 800-625-6448 to discuss your specific church project.