Schedule and Cost Savings for a Road Network on Accelerated Timeline

De Soto, Kansas, is home to the largest economic development project in the state’s history, a 300-acre electric vehicle plant announced in summer of 2022. The manufacturing facility will support 4,000 new jobs but required significant upgrades to local infrastructure. HDR, as lead designer for the Clarkson Construction team, was selected by the Kansas Department of Transportation for the $60 million progressive design-build project to build a new road network designed to service new businesses and future growth.

Upgrades to the area include more than 4 miles of four-lane arterial streets, three multi-lane roundabouts, sidewalks, shared use paths, two simple span bridges, and associated storm sewer, water line, sanitary sewer and lighting upgrades.

State’s First Progressive Design-Build

The project is Kansas’s first to be completed using the progressive design-build method, chosen because of the accelerated schedule required. After the Clarkson-HDR team was selected, design plans developed to a 5% level were provided. The project team had just 15 weeks to develop the 60% design. The progressive design-build project then entered the next phase, with final scope, schedule and price determined.

Final designs quickly followed, with construction beginning in June 2023 and the last design package submitted by August 2023. Altogether, the aggressive schedule included about five months for procurement in 2022, six months for design in early 2023 and 18 months for construction. The progressive approach has allowed for opening portions of the project in mid-2024 with substantial completion by the end of 2024, meeting its goal of substantial completion within two years of NTP for design.

The delivery method relies on strong collaboration and communication between all parties. That meant weekly task force meetings with KDOT, the contractor and our design team; biweekly meetings with the city of De Soto and utility third parties; biweekly meetings with the manufacturing facility owner and their contractor; and monthly meetings with another developer also working near the project site.

Time and Cost Savings

The speed required on the project called for some innovative solutions. The required schedule meant that there was not time to relocate all utilities before construction. For instance, the storm sewer design was modified to allow construction to begin with the utilities relocated after other components of the project were complete.

It’s estimated that using the progressive design-build approach completed the project 3-6 months faster than using traditional fixed-price design-build and at least a year faster than a traditional design-bid-build method. The extensive use of a risk register also led to significant cost savings on the project. Many of the contingency items that would normally be part of a lump sum contract were instead included and addressed via this risk assessment approach. All told, it’s estimated that the approach saved between $4 million and $8 million for the client by averting risks that were tracked and mitigated via the risk register rather than retained as contingencies in a larger contract. There were also other savings to the project found by optimizing the design with immediate contractor and owner impact early in the design process.