The Owner's Architect

Project Costs
The bids on the project were all within 2% of each other. That meant that my drawings were thorough. But the client still wanted a lower price. Rather than change the scope of the project (the correct action at this point) they decided on a less than ideal tactic. They pulled the low bidder in and offered the project to him but said that it had to be substantially lower. Amazingly, the bidder came back with a price that was substantially less than his original bid. Remember, overhead and profit is usually around 16%. In my opinion, it wasn’t possible to complete this scope for that price. The client jumped on it. After the first pay application, I could tell that the books were cooked. He wasn’t going to have enough money in the project to pay for all of the trades. Repeated warnings went unheeded. Time always tells in these cases. Qualified contractors are worth their pay.