Garco has completed 50 percent of the Spokane, Wash.-based Rogers High School addition and renovation project.

Although Garco Construction had wanted to enter the construction management sector for five or six years, Vice President Clancy Welsh says his company continued to lose bids for major projects because of its lack of experience with this delivery method. “We were a little late getting into the GC/CM [general contractor/construction manager] model,” Welsh adds.

But after Garco had been turned down for numerous higher education contracts that sought construction management firms with previous experience, a client finally took a chance on the company for its first major GC/CM project. Today, Garco has completed 50 percent of the Rogers High School addition and renovation project after the Spokane (Wash.) Public Schools accepted its proposal as a general contractor/construction manager (GC/CM) in April 2005 because of the district's previous relationship with the company.

“This was our first major venue in the GC/CM market,” Welsh says. “We have a strong relationship with the school district through other projects that were standard bidding procedures.” Since then, Garco has added two more high school renovation and modernization projects to its backlog as a GC/CM, which total $110 million in construction costs.

Garco Construction was spun off from Gifford Hill in 1978 as an erector of pre-engineered steel structures. Tim Welsh, Clancy Welsh's father, purchased the Garco construction division with Frank Etter, both of whom are still active in the company.

Today, the company self-performs concrete work, carpentry and steel erection in the automotive, commercial, educational, military, transportation and industrial markets.

The GC/CM Difference
The $50 million Rogers High School project will accommodate 1,800 students in 76 classrooms. Garco is building 170,000 square feet of new space and renovating a 95,000-square-foot existing building that was built in 1932. Garco is also adding a new gymnasium, locker rooms, common areas, library and an administrative area. The project will require about 1,000 tons of steel and about 5,000 yards of concrete, according to Clancy Welsh.

The biggest difference Welsh noticed as a GC/CM vs. the traditional delivery method was the level of involvement Garco had in preplanning. This was especially important when trying to plan around the needs of faculty and students.

“We were selected in April 2005 and had a year of involvement with the owner, architect and school faculty,” Welsh adds. “A lot of the challenges were initially identified with regards to exposure to students and students’ exposure to us. Since we were able to get involved considerably earlier, we worked with the school as opposed to just showing up on day one. Early involvement has been key.

“We learned a lot on the first portion of the project as far as the importance of phasing. We develop a construction phasing plan to reduce the impact on the faculty and students while maintaining efficiency in construction.”

Other GC/CM Benefits
In the past few years, Welsh says the Pacific Northwest, like most of the country, has had to deal with a shortage of materials, specifically concrete and steel. Because of the pricing of these materials, Welsh says some owners who have not built projects recently experience “sticker shock” when budgets are initially proposed.

But the GC/CM model helps Garco ease owners' fears about the costs of materials by suggesting alternative materials to eliminate budget strains. “It is still difficult to forecast, but since last year it leveled out in a lot of different areas,” Welsh admits. “One-and-a-half to two years ago, it was difficult with some of the rising costs we were seeing.

“We have to be right up front, and we've been fairly successful with owners understanding certain circumstances. Most of them are in some type of consumer-use business, as well, so they are seeing it on their end as much as we are.”

Through GC/CM, however, Garco has had to cut back on the amount of work it self-performs on projects per the language of GC/CM contracts, which only allows 30 percent of self-performed maximum allowable construction cost.

But the company still self-performs concrete, carpentry and steel erection, according to Welsh. “We self-performed a considerable amount more in the initial years because that was a majority of what we did – self-performance of steel buildings. But because of the type of markets we've gone into, we've reduced the amount of self-performance that we do.

“We pride ourselves in the quality of work our subcontractors provide as well as our own employees,” Welsh says. “We're usually running between 250 and 300 people in the field, which, for our size, is a considerable amount of field staff.”