Cost isn’t the only thing on building owners’ minds these days, but it certainly informs their choices of AEC partners, projects, and products. This is one of the many takeaways from BD+C’s inaugural Owners Survey Report, which collected input from 156 building owners and developers throughout December 2020 and January 2021 on a variety of topics: their top development challenges, what they look for in AEC firm partners, and their most promising innovations.
The survey findings point to a growing demand for collaboration and partnership during these chaotic times—and mounting frustration over a lack of focus and discipline among their AEC firm partners around project costs.
“Architects and designers need to work within a budget,” said Michael Vachio, LEED AP, Vice President of Development and Construction for JL Capital in Hawaii. “The value engineering phase of a project is becoming longer and larger.”
Time and again, in their comments, owners asserted that AEC firms don’t listen to their concerns, especially—but not exclusively—about taming a project’s cost. Owners also claimed they want closer collaboration with their teams, subs, and suppliers, some to the point of encouraging integrated project delivery methods that ultimately speed the construction process.
At the very least, AEC firms might reconsider how they pitch projects, with an eye toward appreciating the owner’s perspective.
AEC firms also need to overcome some owners’ lingering skepticism about investing in strategies that are environmentally responsible but whose implementation costs “impact the rents tenants are willing to pay and [what] financial institutions are willing to lend in some markets,” said Cassie Paben, Director of Business Development for Tetrad Property Group.
Click To Download BD+C's 2021 Owners Survey Report
This exclusive BD+C survey of 156 building owners and developers explores the changing and most-pressing needs of this highly influential group. From project financing to client service to design, construction, and operations, this research breaks down emerging trends, innovations, and the biggest wants and needs among owners/developers. The survey covers:
• What owners/developers look for in an AEC firm
• Biggest development challenges
• Top health/wellness/environmental strategies on projects
• Single-biggest innovation implemented on projects
• Response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Download the 16-page PDF report with the complete findings from BD+C's 2021 Owners Survey. Thanks!
That being said, AEC firms should also test those waters to see if owners are prepared to enter into contractual commitments necessary for establishing accountable and financial collaboration on both sides.
Owner–AEC relations that work usually boil down to trust. Our survey reveals that, perhaps more than ever, owners are turning to their AEC partners to help their companies and projects take advantage of the
latest products and best practices in such areas as technology, building systems, energy efficiency, and sustainability.
Our survey’s respondents sounded eager to try out new ideas that deliver predictable ROIs. But as one owner conceded, the industry is moving faster than any one company can keep up with. AEC firms only increase their value when they provide practical solutions for projects that factor in an owner’s budgetary, marketing, and operational parameters, as well as end-user and occupant comfort.
Download the Owners Survey Report at: BDCnetwork.com/OwnerSurvey2021.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Burr Elementary School
In planning the Burr Elementary School in Fairfield, Conn., the school's building committee heeded the words of William Wordsworth: Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher. They selected construction manager Turner Construction Company, New York, and the New York office of A/E firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to integrate nature on the heavily wooded 15.
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Trenton Daylight/Twilight High School Trenton, N.J.
The story of the Trenton Daylight/Twilight High School is one of renewal and rebirth—both of the classic buildings that symbolize the city's past and the youth that represent its future. The $39 million, 101,000-sf urban infill project locates the high school—which serves recent dropouts and students who are at risk of dropping out—within three existing vacant buildings.
| Aug 11, 2010
New school designs don't go by the book
America needs more schools. Forty-five percent of the nation's elementary, middle, and high schools were built between 1950 and 1969, according market research firm ZweigWhite, Natick, Mass. Yet even as the stock of K-12 schools ages and declines, school enrollments continue to climb. The National Center for Education Statistics predicts that enrollment in public K-12 schools will keep rising...
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Lincoln High School Tacoma, Wash.
Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Wash., was built in 1913 and spent nearly a century morphing into a patchwork of outdated and confusing additions. A few years ago, the Tacoma School District picked Lincoln High School, dubbed “Old Main,” to be the first high school in the district to be part of its newly launched Small Learning Communities program.
| Aug 11, 2010
Great Solutions: Technology
19. Hybrid Geothermal Technology The team at Stantec saved $800,000 in construction costs by embedding geothermal piping into the structural piles at the WestJet office complex in Calgary, Alb., rather than drilling boreholes adjacent to the building site, which is the standard approach. Regular geothermal installation would have required about 200 boreholes, each about four-inches in diameter ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Cronkite Communication School Speaks to Phoenix Redevelopment
The city of Phoenix has sprawling suburbs, but its outward expansion caused the downtown core to stagnate—a problem not uncommon to other major metropolitan areas. Reviving the city became a hotbed issue for Mayor Phil Gordon, who envisioned a vibrant downtown that offered opportunities for living, working, learning, and playing.
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Hawthorne Elementary School, Elmhurst, Ill.
At 121 years, Hawthorne School is the oldest elementary school building in the Elmhurst, Ill., school district and a source of pride for the community. Unfortunately, decades of modifications and short-sighted planning had rendered it dysfunctional in terms of modern educational delivery. At the same time, increasing enrollment was leading to overcrowding, with the result that the library, for ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Platinum Award: Reviving Oakland's Uptown Showstopper
The story of the Fox Oakland Theater is like that of so many movie palaces of the early 20th century. Built in 1928 based on a Middle Eastern-influenced design by architect Charles Peter Weeks and engineer William Peyton Day, the 3,400-seat cinema flourished until the mid-1960s, when the trend toward smaller multiplex theaters took its toll on the Fox Oakland.
