A $30-million, 172,000-sf building, which delivers in 18 months, will house public safety offices, including police and fire departments, municipal and county courts, prosecutor's office and a satellite office of the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles. The project will deliver in 18 months. Situated to the north is a 35,000-sf undertaking, ticketed to cost $4.2 million. The two-story office building will house the city's planning, engineering and economic development departments. About 100 city employees are expected to move into the smaller building upon completion in April.

"We've needed this space for a few years," says Ray Patten, Gilbert's building and code compliance director. "We've outgrown this building and used the modulars as in interim solution."

The 35,000-sf municipal building is the first office structure to be built by a Valley city using the design-build bid method. In 2000, public entities in Arizona were allowed to award construction projects based on design quality and general contractor rather than the lowest bid.

"It was very much like how they do it in the private sector," Michelle Lang, vice president of business development for Tempe-based Johnson Carlier, which was awarded the 35,000-sf office project. "They wanted to know our team approach. They were looking for teams or firms that had similar experience in what they wanted to build."

The Tempe-based general contractor partnered with Phoenix-based Dick & Fritsche Design Group on the bid. The proposal was selected from a field of three finalists. The design-build team worked with city officials to create an office building to meet the needs, but also fell within the established $4.2-million budget.

The "alternative project delivery method," as the new process is called, is sure to reduce costs and improve efficiency, Lang says. "You are all in this together from the very beginning," she said. "You are designing it as you are constructing it. There are not change orders unless the owner decides on something else. You eliminate all the finger pointing."

The city relied on the low-bid method to line up the design and construction team for the $30-million public safety building. The winners were Gilbert-based Hoffman-Dietz Architecture, which has designed a number of Gilbert's municipal buildings, and Phoenix-based D.L. Withers Construction LC.