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Ames City Council workshop: industry panel outlines pros and cons of CMAR, CMA, owner's rep and design-bid-build
Summary
At a June 16 special workshop, city staff and three contractors briefed the council on delivery models for public construction projects; panelists said method choice should match project complexity, market conditions and owner capacity and highlighted how CMAR, CMA and owner's reps manage change orders, risk and procurement differently.
At a June 16 special workshop the Ames City Council heard a detailed briefing from industry representatives about four construction delivery approaches — owner’s representative (construction advisor), design-bid-build, construction manager as agent (CMA) and construction manager at risk (CMAR) — and how each allocates risk, handles procurement and affects change orders on public projects.
City staff opened the meeting by saying the session was informational and that no formal action was expected. Panelists were introduced as Brandon Griffin of De Novo Construction Solutions, Mike Espeset of Story Construction and Art Baumgartner and Grant Reimers of Woodruff Construction. The presentations were framed around upcoming projects the city is considering, including a municipal energy center project that staff said may warrant exploring CMAR because of its complexity.
Brandon Griffin described the owner’s-representative role as an independent adviser retained by the owner to "help procure the construction process," provide constructability reviews, cost-estimating and onsite reporting, and to "assist with the change management and project close outs." He emphasized that advisors do not perform construction and do not hold trade contracts for the work.
Panelists said the CMA and CMAR approaches offer pre-construction services that can reduce ambiguity and the incidence of late change orders. "The concept of prevention is better than trying to deal with [change orders] later," Mike Espeset said, advocating for early contractor involvement in design. Grant Reimers and Art Baumgartner explained that CMAR includes a qualifications-driven subcontractor process prescribed by Iowa Code chapter 26A and typically results in a guaranteed maximum price (GMP), with open-book accounting for allowances and contingencies.
Panelists discussed trade-offs: CMAR can shift more risk to the contractor and provide a single conduit for accountability, but it imposes procurement requirements and requires careful scoring and early selection. CMA preserves more prime-contract relationships with the owner and can be a representative on the owner's side during bidding. The group cited the Des Moines International Airport terminal and an academic comparison as examples showing differences in schedule and contingency handling across methods.
Council members focused questions on how to limit abusive change orders, how owners can disqualify subcontractors or address nonperforming subs, whether GMPs and liquidated damages are effective, and how to staff oversight for complex projects. Panelists and staff repeatedly recommended tailoring the procurement approach and scoring to the project’s specific risks and market circumstances rather than defaulting to a single method.
Mayor and staff closed the workshop by thanking the panel and asking staff to return recommendations aligned to specific future projects. No procurement decisions were made at the meeting.
