[familyguy]

I need a little bit of input. We have a job to bid that I am not surre I understand how I am supposed to bid. One of our customers heads a board for a well to do private school's new construction project. He loves the school as do a bunch of other wealthy folks and has donated a new building, renovations, and landscaping. We have the benefit of being his landscape company of choice. The job is ours no questions asked. A loyalty that has been earned with excellent work on his own large estate over a 6 year period.

Here is the issue. As with any large project, there have been tons of changes. However, the origional construction permit was accompanied with some kind of landscaping plan (that I haven't gotten yet). I have the newest, (incomplete however), landscape plan and they needed pricing "yesterday" as it were. They need, and here is where I get confused, a bid for the origional plan to submit WITH the new actual design as change orders to satisfy the requirements for their certificate of occupancy. My question is... why? That seems pointless considering the designer wasn't even on board and the plan is probably not even close to what it is now.

Does anyone have experience with this so I can understand how they might be looking for me to lay this bid out? I have some inclinations but anyone with some experience would be helpful.

Thanks

[agla]

Some projects, as I'm sure you know, go through planning boards, conservation commissions, zoning board of appeals,.... . When they go through those boards, there is an approved plan and often an Order of Conditions that goes with that approved plan. Only what is shown on that plan is approved to be built and the Order of Conditions must be followed.

Any changes from the approved plan require an amendment of the Oreder of Conditions and a revised plan that needs to be approved. This is a very common occurance. The board that approved this is probably requiring a plan that highlights how it differs from the approved plan.

Usually, one of those Orders of Conditions is usually that the Order of Conditions and approved plan is given to every subcontractor and one copy is at the site at all times. Some boards require contractors to sign off that they received a copy.

It sounds like they want to amend the order and revise the plan after the fact (have you built it yet?) or are preparing to amend it prior to construction.

My guess is that you have not built this yet and that the people in charge of the project want to see if it is worth the effort to change from the approved plan to the new one. Attornies, engineers, consultants, and filing fees add up when amending an Order of Conditions. They probably want to look at the difference in cost between going with the original plan and order vs. going through the amending process and the cost of the new landscape. That might be why they want an estimate for the original plan.

Price the original as if you might actually be doing it because you might be.

[Dale Wiley]

Around here that is known as " padding our construction loan".

Get high quotes, pad the loan, do the job not even close to spec and then pay off the final inspectors to get the occupancy permit.

We had a couple of slick shoe developers come to us and want a price on 11,000 plants and subdivision landscaping. When they stepped out of their brand new jacked up 4wd truck, with their moussed hair, shorts and sandals on, I damn near laughed.

We were at a supply yard at the time, and they needed this quote yesterday. I declined to provide that information, but one or 2 other guys fell all over themselves and worked day and night to get the quote done. That was 3 years ago.

The developers tried to get the project started without permits, tried to pay off a permits offical, who then had to quit, the project stalled and went nowhere. The excavation contractor liened the project, they owe one of those "landscape business's" over 100K, and they are filing banko.

Oh... and the developers are trying to sell the project for about 50 cents on the dollar, but there is soooo many liens on it they will never get it.

I would charge for this design and quote since around here it would never happen that way.