The creation of truly comprehensive facility systems and solutions for your educational institution requires a keen understanding of a long list of component parts. These are the parts that must be understood in depth for each institution if you are going to bring together the best progress for your schools.

Assessments of Existing Facilities:

No educational institutions can afford to squander resources, especially expensive resources like facilities. It is necessary to ask questions about the condition of your existing facilities in detail. This is the crucial step that follows the Academic / Educational Master Plan. BRJ & Associates has experts who accurately assess the existing condition of facilities and the physical and financial viability of modernizing those facilities. We have repeatedly succeeded in creating the necessary link between Educational Master Plans and existing facilities resources.

If you are like most public educational institutions, you struggle to find the money that’s needed to fully support your facilities needs. It’s important therefore, to leverage local funds such as local school bonds with funding from the State. In the highly competitive arena of securing State funds it is crucial to understand their rules and regulations, the ins and outs of their timing and point system, and the systematic applications and reporting that put your institution in the best possible position to be approved for the most possible funding. BRJ & Associates has had extensive experience in working within the State’s facility and funding agencies. The personal relationships we have developed, and the deep understanding of the systems and solutions found in the State School Facilities Program, give us and our clients a clear advantage in the business of multiplying local funds.

Facilities Master Planning:

Campus planning, district-wide planning, and long-range facilities planning begin with the questions answered in the steps above — it’s all about the educational goals. Then, looking even beyond currently affordable projects, plans are developed for the distant future in order to make the right decisions for today. Especially in California, that means that strict environmental procedures need to be included in the planning. Again, framing the questions of the ultimate dreams for education and its facilities provides a clear roadmap for what and how to build in the present. This long-range planning for facilities is at the heart of BRJ & Associates' experience and mission. Our direct experience in the educational, architectural, and planning fields has equipped our team to provide excellent guidance to educational clients planning their facilities future.

Project Delivery Options:

The phrase “There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” means there are a lots of ways of accomplishing your goal. We don’t really quite believe that. BRJ & Associates believes instead that there will be very specific reasons to use one of the wide varieties of project delivery methods available to institutions. Design-Build, Construction Manager-at-Risk, General Contractor, Multi-Prime Contracting, and their variations are too often touted as possessing magical powers to solve the project challenges most institutions face. The truth, we believe, is that there are no magical solutions found in project delivery methods — there are no magical solutions at all. Sound solutions are only found in a disciplined search of both the right questions and their most effective answers. Design-Build answers only some of the questions. Multi-Prime Contracting answers only some of the questions. Ultimate effectiveness comes from understanding the ins and outs of each of these systems and applying that understanding to the specific questions of the client. BRJ & Associates has deep experience in working with a wide variety of project delivery systems, and in a wide variety of roles within those systems.

The Program is the written description of the project. It includes quantitative and qualitative goals for a facility, including numbers and sizes of spaces, contents and qualities of those spaces, adjacency requirements by space and/or department, and budgetary goals and expectations. BRJ & Associates personnel have written such documents. We have studied the requirements, lead programming teams, and helped facilities users understand and articulate their own specific facility needs and desires. The final piece of a facilities program is a statement of probable construction cost for the outlined facility. This estimate, carefully detailed and deeply understood, completes the information the institution needs to make their decisions about project priorities that achieve their operational and financial goals.

Systematic design of facilities usually follows a standardized pattern without inhibiting the necessary creativity for providing customized sound solutions for the individual project. Educational institutions must be deeply involved in that process if the result is to achieve their educational goals. That involvement demands choices to be made which will have very permanent consequences. The experienced design-phase manager knows the design process and the consequences of the incremental decisions. BRJ & Associates has personnel who have designed educational facilities and directly managed the consulting design teams. Added to that experience is our past work in general contracting that adds invaluable perspective on the design process. All of this experience is applied to both the management of the process, and the analysis of the results. Reviewing documents for their ability to be easily bid (Bid-ability) and constructed (Constructability) is among the most important elements of our service, because it minimizes construction phase delays and cost increases.

Pre-qualification of bidders gives public agencies the opportunity to reach into their local community of businesses. It nurtures a deeper interest among more highly qualified builders. And it answers, in advance, some of the key questions about the suitability of contractors from whom the institution will select the low bidder. This is a process that has very specific rules in the Public Contracting Code and that can create more confusion than clarity if carried out by inexperienced professionals. We have repeatedly used the pre-qualification of bidders to bring strong benefits to our clients. Finally, after bids are received, a thorough analysis is needed to ensure that there are no hidden flaws implied by the bid results, that the low bidder is responsive to the full requirements of the construction contract, and that all of the bond and insurance protections are in place for the owner.

A full description of the process of construction management fills large books. At its core, the management of the construction process is the control of three things: Money, Time, and Quality/Scope. Everything we do is a subset of one or more of these three things, and it bears repeating that success is not possible, nor would we dream of attempting it, without diligently attending to the details of the entire process. We operate the systems — time-tested, adaptable systems. We direct the process — a highly collaborative, communicative process. And, we record and report the results — public educational institutions have a high need for public awareness and transparency of process, results, and especially money — their money.