faster timelines, fewer risks, and better alignment with client goals
Integrated Versus Traditional Delivery Models
At ML Group, we prioritize collaboration and efficiency in every project we undertake. By leveraging Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and design-build models, we consistently deliver projects faster, with fewer risks and better alignment with our clients’ goals. These approaches contrast sharply with the traditional design-bid-build method, which, while often appearing to be the cheapest option upfront, frequently leads to delays, budget overruns, and adversarial relationships between stakeholders.
The Challenges of Design-Bid-Build
The traditional design-bid-build delivery method is a linear process where the owner hires a designer to develop a design. The general contractor then bids on the cost of building that design. While this approach can initially appear to be the most cost-effective due to competitive bidding, it often introduces significant risks that can outweigh those upfront savings:
- Budget Misalignment: Designers focused on fulfilling the client’s vision may lack detailed insight into construction costs. This situation frequently leads to designs exceeding the budget, forcing clients to pay more or endure costly and time-consuming redesigns.
- Adversarial Relationships: Contractors may submit low bids to win projects, intending to increase revenue through change orders when they find errors or omissions in the design. This approach creates tension and mistrust between designers, contractors, and even the owners.
- Prolonged Timelines: The sequential nature of design-bid-build delays pricing and pre-construction planning until after the design phase is complete. This scenario lengthens the project schedule and pushes back the start of construction.
While design-bid-build is initially cheaper, these inefficiencies often result in costly delays, budget overruns, and even disputes that require mediation or litigation, compounding the overall project cost and risk.
Design-Bid-Build (Traditional) Delivery In Theory
Design-Bid-Build (Traditional) Delivery In Practice
The Collaborative Advantage of Design-Build and IDP
In design-build and IPD models, collaboration replaces conflict. These delivery methods bring designers, contractors, and clients together as a unified team from the project’s inception, ensuring a shared focus on cost, schedule, and quality.
- Streamlined Communication: Fostering a collaborative environment enables potential issues to be identified and resolved earlier in the design process, reducing costly surprises during construction.
- Accelerated Schedules: Pricing and pre-construction planning begin as soon as the design team completes permit drawings, eliminating the lag inherent in the design-bid-build process. Projects often see timelines reduced by up to 30%, allowing clients to monetize assets sooner and reduce carrying costs.
- Cost Certainty: With contractors involved early, material costs, construction methods, and budget constraints are factored into the design from the beginning, minimizing redesigns and budget overruns.
These benefits demonstrate why integrated delivery models are preferred for clients seeking efficiency, reduced risk, and faster results.
Taking Integration Even Further for High-Velocity Renovation/Redevelopment Projects
While integrated delivery models already create significant efficiencies, ML Group takes this approach even further for projects requiring high-velocity renovations—such as multi-family housing renovations, healthcare facilities, and hospitality conversions—where phasing is critical.
Keeping spaces operational while executing renovations is a key challenge for these asset types. Our integrated approach allows us to phase construction to minimize disruptions to tenants, patients, guests, and ongoing business operations. However, what truly sets us apart is our ability to overlap design and construction phases further, eliminating even more time from the overall redevelopment schedule.
- Simultaneous Design & Construction Execution: We often begin design immediately upon closing and sometime before, with construction starting within days. While phased construction reduces operational disruptions, the overlapping of design and construction removes months from the redevelopment/renovation process—time that would otherwise be lost in a traditional sequential approach.
- Strategic Phasing of Work Areas: Coordinating upgrades in amenity spaces, corridors, and residential/guest rooms to ensure portions of the building remain functional throughout construction.
- Early Site & Phasing Evaluations: We often walk through properties with clients pre-closing, helping them assess whether to acquire a building by identifying key renovation challenges and opportunities before they purchase and giving us a head start with design and construction.
By tightly integrating these phases, we drastically shorten project timelines, allowing our clients to begin leasing, operating, or repositioning their assets significantly sooner. Our approach reduces carrying costs, accelerates revenue streams, and enhances overall project ROI.
Taking Integration Even Further for High-Velocity Renovation/Redevelopment Projects
ML Group exemplified this approach to high-velocity redevelopment in our renovation of The Archer, a boutique multi-family housing project in Chicago’s Gold Coast. What would have taken at least 30 weeks in a traditional design-bid-build process was completed just 15 weeks after closing.
Our ability to cut the project timeline in half was driven by:
- Early Engagement in Due Diligence: We began design five weeks before closing, working alongside the client during the acquisition process to strategize the renovation.
- Overlapping Design & Construction: We started construction the day after closing, only five weeks into a 16-week design process—overlapping design and construction by 11 weeks to eliminate unnecessary downtime.
- Seamless Collaboration: Our internal design and construction teams worked closely with the client, ensuring efficient communication and real-time problem-solving.
While we remained on-site for an additional six to eight months to renovate individual units as leases expired, the public space renovations—including lobbies, amenity spaces, and hallways—were completed in under 3.5 months.
Despite the super-accelerated timeline, quality design was never sacrificed—as illustrated by the accompanying images that showcase the finished project.
See the Difference
The above Gantt chart demonstrates how a design-build or IPD process can reduce project schedules by over 30% compared to the traditional design-bid-build model. We achieve this efficiency by reducing the project’s critical path through overlapping design, pricing, and pre-construction tasks.
We’ve also included diagrams illustrating the pitfalls of the design-bid-build approach and how integrated models like IPD eliminate these inefficiencies.
How ML Group Maximizes ROI Through Integration
While results like The Archer represent a best-case scenario requiring the dedication and familiarity of our design-build team and a client committed to ambitious goals, we achieve incredible results across various projects due to our ability to seamlessly collaborate with external designers, architects, and consultants.
At ML Group, we often go beyond the standard benefits of design-build and IPD. Our development-centric approach allows us to engage with clients early in the project lifecycle, developing phased construction strategies that further optimize schedules. By considering the big picture, we help clients reduce construction loan durations and realize revenue streams sooner, driving maximum return on investment (ROI).
Whether working as the general contractor or as part of a fully integrated team, our commitment to Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) principles ensures that every project benefits from a unified strategy. The Archer is a prime example of how ML Group’s integrated approach delivers measurable results, cutting project delivery time by more than 50% and accelerating revenue generation for our clients.