Case Study:
Jefferson Union High School District, Faculty & Staff Housing, Daly City, CA
The Jefferson Union High School District (“JUHSD”) serves San Francisco Bay Area families who reside in the coastal communities of Daly City and Pacifica as well as the Town of Colma. Since 2017, Brookwood has advised JUHSD with respect to a number of strategic real estate initiatives, all in support of the District’s educational mission. Many of these initiatives are driven by the District’s challenges in attracting and retaining qualified faculty and staff. Housing costs in the San Francisco Bay Area are exceptionally high, so this has become an enormous problem for JUHSD and its employees.
Among its many strategic initiatives, JUHSD has taken the bold step of creating the nation's first voter-approved teacher-staff general obligation bond financing to fund, develop and own housing on surplus District property.
The Project, a 122-unit apartment building now under construction, will be leased at below-market rents exclusively to school district faculty and staff. This is seen as an essential tool for JUHSD in its efforts to attract, recruit and retain teachers and other employees.
Because JUHSD is financing the project with a combination of general obligation bonds and certificates of participation, there is a need for a high degree of certainty regarding construction schedule, quality and cost. This has led JUHSD and Brookwood to utilize the Bridging Method of construction procurement.
Pioneered by Brookwood more than three decades ago, and now widely used throughout the industry, the Bridging method results in a design/build form of agreement while avoiding pitfalls often associated with traditional design/build agreements.
Starting in 2017 Brookwood worked with JUHSD to conduct external market research and to gather internal guidance and feedback from its employees. This enabled the District to meticulously plan the project to best meet the above stated objectives.
The core team representing the District has consisted of two members of the Board of Trustees, acting in their capacity as a subcommittee, JUHSD staff, and several members of the Brookwood organization. Brookwood also engaged an architectural / engineering and specialty consultant team to provide project documents that were sufficient:
for the City of Daly City to conduct environmental studies and consider the project from a planning & zoning perspective;
to provide all the project definition (including drawings and performance-based specifications) sufficient to solicit bids for a design-bid form of agreement with pre-qualified contractors; and
for the District to enter into a lump-sum fixed-price design-build agreement with a contractor (the “Design Builder”).
Working with Daly City’s officials (including City Planners, staff from many other departments, the Planning Commission and others), the JUHSD core team were able to expedite approval of the project and break ground on the project in early February 2020. The project will be available to JUHSD faculty and staff in 2022.
Project Team
The Project Team representing JUHSD includes Brookwood and its consultants, collectively referred to under the Bridging method as the Owner’s Design Consultant (“ODC”). This team exclusively represents the interests of the Owner (JUHSD) in the context of procuring and administering the design-build form of agreement, which is based upon Bridging Contract Documents (“BCD”) consisting of the Design Guide Illustrations (“DGI”) and the Owner’s Minimum Requirements (“OMR”).
Under the Bridging method of design and construction procurement, the intent of the BCDs is to define everything about the project that is of importance to the Owner, while leaving undefined (or defined by performance specifications) all elements of the project that the Owner may prudently leave to the decision of the Design Builder. The BCDs include drawings (DGI) and performance specifications (OMR). This results in the basis of an enforceable contract between the Design Builder and the Owner that is achieved in less time than other procurement methods and, yet, is more reliable than other forms of agreement from the perspective of the Owner. While this places more responsibility on the Design Builder, it also allows the Design Builder to bring its creative and technical abilities to bear on the project, both earlier in the process and in a more meaningful and effective manner. It also eliminates many of the pitfalls in other procurement methods that can lead to unanticipated change orders, delay claims, and other problems.
Perhaps counterintuitively, Bridging forms of agreement tend to result in highly collaborative working relationships, and this is proving to be the case with the JUHSD Faculty & Staff Housing Project.
Brookwood’s Team representing JUHSD includes:
Seidel Architects (as Conceptual Designer)
BDE Architecture (as Architectural Design Consultant)
Jett Landscape Architecture + Design (as Landscape Architect)
BKF Engineering (as Civil Engineer and Surveyor)
Telesis Engineers (as Structural Engineering Advisor)
Interface Engineering (as MEP Advisor)
Charles Salter (as Acoustical Advisor)
Slate Geotechnical (as Geotechnical Advisor )
Hexagon Transportation Consultants (as Transportation Consultant )
TBD Consultants (as Cost Consultant)
JUHSD and Brookwood prequalified three Design Build teams through an RFQ process that took place in 2018. The subsequent RFP process in early 2019 resulted in the selection of the Design Build team, lead by the Oakland Bay general contracting firm of J.H. Fitzmaurice (“JHF”).
The JHF Design-Build Team includes:
SVA Architects (acting as the Architect of Record)
LUK + Associates (acting as Civil Engineer of Record)
IDA Structural Engineers (acting as foundation Structural Engineer of Record)
Ficcadenti Waggoner and Castle Structural Engineers (acting as framing Structural Engineer of Record)
Emerald City Engineers (acting as Electrical Engineer of Record)
ANLA Associates (acting as Landscape Architect Engineer of Record)
More about the Bridging method
Over the past several decades, the Bridging method of project delivery (www.bridgingmethod.com) has become a widely practiced and well accepted technique for organizing the roles of architects, engineers and contractors. The method is a hybrid of traditional Design/Bid/Build and Design/Build contracting approaches. Bridging improves project results and reduces risks, particularly from the perspective of the Owner.
Brookwood frequently advises its clients and partners on the proper and effective use of the Bridging method. As with any method of project delivery, the best results are achieved through the thoughtful, disciplined and correct application of the process by well qualified and accomplished teams of managers and professionals.
Properly applied, the Bridging method fosters a highly collaborative team environment while retaining clarity in roles and responsibilities of project participants. Bridging essentially eliminates the Owner's exposure to unwarranted change orders.
Brookwood and its principals have unparalleled experience acting as an Owner, Developer or Program Manager in administering Bridging contracts. In some instances, Brookwood also has served as the Owner’s Design Consultant in Bridging procurements.
For detailed information about the Bridging method of project delivery, please see the publications section of this website. Please also visit www.bridgingmethod.com (a separate website maintained by Brookwood) and www.bridginginstitute.org which is the website of the Bridging Institute of America (BIA).
