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COVER STORY, JUNE 2005
TRENDS IN CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
A New York-based construction management firm details changes in the business.
Nicole Thompson
When C&S Companies, which has its headquarters in Syracuse, New York, does construction management, it most often provides agency construction management, where they act as the the owner’s agent when an owner doesn’t have the in-house capabilities to manage a construction project. In addition, C&S Companies has worked extensively in the public sector, including a wastewater treatment plant in Syracuse, New York. The $125 million upgrade to the treatment plant is one of the most complex parts of a $500 million Onondaga Lake Cleanup Program. C&S Companies has partnered with Camp, Dresser & McLee to manage the cleanup program, which involves more than 10 prime contractors and a very aggressive schedule. The cleanup program was so stringent that the wastewater treatment plant was required to process the water to very high EPA standards. This necessitated the combination of two state-of-the-art technologies, one that is new to the United States, and another that cleans water to drinking water standards. Another project in Syracuse that C&S Companies managed was the redevelopment of Clinton Square in Syracuse, which had a total cost of $8.5 million from seven different funding sources, ranging widely from the state historic preservation office to the Federal Highway Administration to the City of Syracuse Water Department.
Joe Delaney, manager of construction for C&S Companies, has noticed several trends in the construction industry that are affecting the way constuction managers are doing business.
“The number one thing is the aggressive nature of schedules, especially when you’re doing projects in cities. And that requires us to do more sophisticated scheduling, using the lastest software and keeping a much closer eye on the schedule,” says Delaney. Another trend that Delaney has noticed is that the rules that funding sources set are becoming more complex, requiring extensive paperwork on the behalf of the manager. In the wastewater treatment plant project, they had to keep track of three different funding sources, and in the public square redevelopment, the project was actually designed around the constraints of the seven different funding sources. “It’s not enough to be keeping track of what you’re building and if you’re doing it on budget, but also that you’re following the rules so that the owner actually can get reimbursed for what they’re doing. It’s getting tougher,” he says.
Delaney has found that technology advances have really changed the nature of the management business. “It used to be that you’d sit down with the owner behind closed doors and talk,” he says. “Now it’s much more open, and the technology has allowed us to do it. And you absolutely have to employ [the technology] now.” Among the technology advances that have increased the openess of the construction process are computerized scheduling and document control, in addition to web-based sharing of project information. “We pass around project drawings now through the web, provide web-accessible project information to the public and to the owners,” says Delaney. “In the old days, you didn’t have any of that, but now everybody wants to see what’s going on. Most of our owners require us to have project web sites, and the general public can go on and actually see a video of the project, or get the latest information on the budget status — it’s all new. It used to be that a few people would be able to do the high-end stuff, but if you can’t do it now, you’re not in the construction management business anymore. There’s a level of expectation. But it really hasn’t trickled down to the contractors or the subs, and that’s really frustrating for us. We need to have all that information and it is from those contractors that we get it. Some of the more sophisticated contractors are doing it, but not in our area.”
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