Design-Build vs. Design-Bid-Build: Which Is Right for Your North Texas Project?

If you are planning a commercial building, tenant improvement or custom home in Dallas–Fort Worth, the delivery method you choose affects your budget and schedule as much as the design itself.

Design-bid-build: the traditional path

You hire an architect, they produce complete drawings, you send those drawings to several contractors for bids, then you hire the low bidder. The weakness: nobody prices the design until it is finished. If the bids come in high, you pay for redesign and lose months.

Design-build: one team, one contract

With design-build, the contractor is involved from the first concept and prices the design as it develops. Constructability problems are caught on paper, not in the field. Design and preconstruction overlap, which shortens the overall schedule, and there is one party accountable for both the drawings and the finished building.

Which is right for you?

Design-build is the stronger choice when you have a firm budget, a target opening or move-in date and want a single accountable partner. Design-bid-build can make sense for public projects with mandated bidding. For most private commercial and residential projects in Collin and Dallas counties, design-build delivers faster with fewer change orders.

• Faster schedule through overlapping phases
• Real-time pricing during design
• Fewer change orders and RFIs
• Single point of accountability

Talk to a design-build contractor

Aeroform Construction offers design-build services across DFW. Schedule a free consultation to see how it would work for your project.