ISL Engineering and Land Services Ltd. and CH2M HILL Canada Ltd. partnered with The City of Calgary as lead consultants for planning, design, and construction of a new interchange at Glenmore Trail and 37 Street SW. To address potential conflict with the Province’s future Southwest Ring Road, the team responded with a unique design to build a temporary, low-cost interchange: Calgary’s first interchange to be fully serviced by roundabouts. With the functional plan approved on April 1, 2010, the consulting and contracting team opted for an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) model, which allowed for completion of design with constructor input, while early phases of construction proceeded. The project was completed in a record time of five months, with the interchange opening to traffic on September 11, 2010. To achieve this tight timeline, the IPD model was used to leverage the team’s contributions of knowledge and expertise early in the project, allowing all team members to realize their highest potential while expanding the value they provide throughout the project life cycle. Through IPD, owners, designers, and builders can move toward unified models and improved design, construction, and operations processes. Characteristics of IPD include the following: Early Involvement of Participants, Shared Risk and Reward, Multiparty Contract, Collaborative DecisionMaking, Liability Waivers, and Jointly Developed Goals. The project had each of these to the extent possible within City procurement policy. There were many advantages to involving each participant (such as City departments, utilities, vendors, and contractors) at the first opportunity. For example, having ENMAX Corporation on the team early on meant that when plans changed and a transmission line had to be completely relocated, the impacts of realigning the transmission line, including public notification and regulatory processes, could be quickly communicated to all stakeholders. Shared risk and reward was put in place by having all participants commit to the City Council’s project schedule. Contract terms provided schedule extensions for excusable delay, but explicitly stated that no price adjustment would be made for delay of any kind. While City policy disallowed multi-party contracts, strong mandatory partnering had a similar effect in that it encouraged collaborative decision-making. The project’s guiding light came from the underlying commitment to do what is right for the project and acceptance of the overall goal to open the interchange prior to freeze-up in 2010. With overall goals agreed, the owner, designers, and builders all improved design and construction.
