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~The Making of The Quarry: The Giants Ridge Legend~
Many
times, when told that I design golf courses, people remark that they thought
they just “magically” appeared. Well,
I’m not the “new golf fairy”, and nothing could be further from the truth.
Lots of work goes into the planning and constructing of a golf course.
As
I mentioned last month, we now have the plans out to bid and are awaiting
the contractor’s prices. While
there are many ways to build a golf course, our typical method is to draw
a complete set of plans and put it out to bid to qualified contractors.
Other architects build the courses with in-house construction crews,
and there are numerous homemade efforts built by local groups with an interest
in golf.
All
construction projects for public bodies such as City, County, State or Federal
governments are generally awarded to contractors on the basis of competitive
bids to ensure the lowest price. Typically,
our firm is paid a fee to develop a detailed set of plans and specifications
suitable for competitive bid. These
plans can be as thick as 30 sheets or more, and the specifications book
that accompanies them might run 500+ pages. These are legal documents intended to set forth the responsibilities
of the Owner, Contractor, and Architect.
If disputes arise, they can protect the Owner from unnecessary change
orders or claims from an unscrupulous contractor, and vice versa.
It’s
always tense waiting for the bids to come in.
Architects usually prepare cost estimates, but depending on the detail
of their plans, these can be way off base.
While common sense says, that we can’t be responsible for how independent
contractors determine bid prices, we do pride ourselves on keeping track
of current prices, and accurately estimating work quantities to give the
owner accurate estimates. When
we aren’t sure of costs, we design the golf course the way we think the
owner should build it, and then provide for potential deducts through alternate
bids to get the course within in budget if necessary.
We
are usually “optimistic”, designing a bit more golf course than we think
the budget affords, because sometimes contractors surprise us with great
bids. Once, an earthmover was
actually trying to reduce his assets because of a pending divorce. He bid the project at less than half the going rate for earthmoving,
and begged us to change the plans to move more earth!
At his prices, we were more than willing to accommodate him!
We will begin next month telling you how we did.