11/12/2014
The Public Building Commission (PBC) today released its 3rd Quarter 2014 Staff Report, which illustrates the PBC’s commitment to economic sustainability and minority and women-owned business (M/WBE) participation.
Through the third quarter of 2014, on general construction and professional service contracts, PBC reported a strong showing with a combined 38.20% or $12.52 million as paid to date, exceeding the goal of 28%.
“Our commitment to economic sustainability remained strong through this quarter and as we look toward the end of 2014, we are once again exceeding the goals set for M/WBE participation on general construction and professional service contracts,? said Erin Lavin Cabonargi, Executive Director of the PBC.
For Q3 2014, the PBC’s budget to actual variance is less than 1 percent on active projects in planning, design and construction, a trend associated with stabilization in the market over the last several years.
In addition to managing projects to approved budgets, PBC also focuses on strong oversight and management of change orders and indirect project costs to maximize cost effectiveness. The approved change order percentage for recently completed projects and those currently in construction is 2.4%. This is within the industry average of 3-5% for new municipal and educational construction. The PBC’s current program also includes renovation projects, which typically have a higher change order percentage than new construction, underscoring the PBC’s strong oversight of change orders.
The PBC tracks all project costs throughout the life of a project, including all indirect costs, also known as “soft costs” (planning, design program and project management, environmental testing and consulting) as well as all construction costs, also known as “hard costs” (demolition, site prep, utility relocation, and general construction). The PBC’s indirect costs average 16.29% of construction costs, which is consistently below the industry average of 25%.
In addition to strong project management and cost controls, the PBC’s commitment environmental sustainability showed that through Q3 2014 PBC achieved LEED certification on two new projects for a total of 66 municipally-owned projects that have achieved LEED certification, with an additional 17 registered projects, helping to make Chicago the city with the most municipally-owned LEED buildings on the country.