The QBS Express

QBS_Ep28_PaulKulseth_SteveRockers_edit
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Scott Heidner: [00:00:00] Welcome listeners to the QBS Express. This is the ACEC Kansas podcast. I'm your host, executive director, Scott Heidner, and I have an all star crew with me today. Paul Kulseth and Steve Rockers are our guests and I am joined by a crew. Co host Cameron McGown, who is currently the ACEC Kansas president, works at HNTB and incidentally has a little insight into today's topics because he's working on some of the projects we're going to address.

So gentlemen, to all of you, glad to have you here. I'm excited about today's topic and Mr. President, I will turn it over to you to greet and solicit the guests. How does that sound?

Cameron McGown: That sounds great. Well, thanks, Scott. And you know, thanks for hosting us here in your office to do this. I think [00:01:00] this has been a topic that we anticipate is something that a lot of our members are interested in hearing more about.

And big thanks to Paul and to Steve for being willing to come in and share a little bit of their insights and background, a little bit of information on the projects that they're working on right now. So I guess we might start off with just asking you guys to go ahead. Yeah.

Scott Heidner: Well, I'm going to say one thing.

It just occurs to me, you both. And I talked to you and I both talked about being excited about today's topic, but we never actually said out loud what it is. If somebody missed the previews,

Cameron McGown: maybe we ought to do that. We're going to have a little bit of a discussion about. Alternative delivery and a couple of projects that are going on right now with the Kansas Department of Transportation to different projects a couple of different alternative delivery models that those are being delivered by and Yeah, we should be able to have a good conversation here about where those projects are at and maybe where things may go down the line with alternative delivery here in Kansas.

So, with that, maybe I'll go back to where I just was a second ago. [00:02:00] And Paul, if you want to give us a little bit of background on yourself you know, where'd you grow up, you know, that kind of thing and how you came to KDOT and into the position that you're in right now. And then Steve same thing to you.

Paul Kulseth: Okay, so I grew up in Southern Minnesota went to high school in Owatonna, Minnesota for a brief period of time, moved to Phoenix, Arizona, and then went back to Owatonna, graduated, and then went to KU in 96, and I was, I've lived in Lawrence ever since Got my bachelor's and master's at KU, started in the bridge section, worked for five and a half years in the bridge section of design, and then went to bridge inspection for a year and a half, bridge maintenance plans for three and a half years, bridge management for four years, and then Moved on to KU for a year and a half as a project manager, then went back to KDOT and worked in the bridge section again for a year and a half and then into program project management shortly after that.

So Quite a few various positions, but really Working with [00:03:00] KDOT for the full 20 plus years. So that's kind of where Where I was at and where I'm in today. So very

Cameron McGown: good Very good. Thank you for sharing that. And Steve, as we're maybe about to find out, Lawrence must be the center of the universe for alternative delivery in Kansas here.

So, give us a little background on yourself.

Steve Rockers: Well, as a diehard Jayhawk, I would say Lawrence is the center of the universe for a lot of things, Cameron. And you

Cameron McGown: know, it pains me a lot to say that. I made sure you heard that.

Steve Rockers: So, I grew up in Overland Park. And so, this place Project I'm working on tonight is kind of a near and dear to me.

I, I always tell people I remember watching it as a kid kind of getting built. That's what I'm working on right now. And I, some people would kind of suggest that that, oh, I helped build it, but I didn't help build it. I just kind of, as a kid, helped watch it getting built. And so, but my background, I grew up in Overland Park.

I moved to Lawrence in high school. I graduated from Lawrence high. So I've been there for a long time. I, I have a two degrees from the University of Kansas. One in [00:04:00] business and one in civil engineering. And so I kind of, oh, I bleed Jayhawk. My KDOT background is that I've been with KDOT amazingly 32 years this spring.

Yeah, there's not very many of us around. And so, spent most of my career, all my career, basically in road design, that's kind of what my specialty is the road design and project management I did spend currently when I kind of took on this new role as the project manager.

Project Director for USC& I that slid over to the Division of Program and Project Management and I am by title a Senior Project Manager, and so that's my kind of my civil service title and kind of my background

Cameron McGown: very good Well, thank you guys for introducing yourselves a little bit. Scott, you want to maybe kind of dive in some of the

Scott Heidner: So, so today's, you know, global topic is alternative delivery specifically to KDOT in this case, you know, as we talked about at lunch before the podcast, there's all kinds of places where [00:05:00] alternative delivery is used, but we're in.

New territory, new's a relative term. If you go back 10 years to the last highway program but we are in changing territory in terms of KDOT's use of alternative delivery. So, one of the things we want to make sure listeners know, we won't get into this real deep, but how did we morph from the point where KDOT was not allowed to use Alternative delivery to the point today where it can under select circumstances. Starts with legislation from back in the prior 10 year program, I believe. Question mark. Anybody? Buehler. Okay.

Paul Kulseth: So I can start with that. Yeah, I mean, really the previous alternative delivery project we had was the gateway project.

So, Steve and myself, don't get involved in the legislation portion of it. So that would be something that maybe you two could address more specifically. But, you know, we have some history of how that developed along the way. Right. But again, [00:06:00] I mean, I guess I would turn that back to you guys.

If you know how the legislation has changed over the years, I guess would be the first question.

Scott Heidner: Well, it started more than 10 years ago with the beginning of the T Works plan, the last two year tenure program, but it really was just limited to one project.

Cameron McGown: Yeah, that's right. My understanding is it was, it was limited to one, and I think it was even characterized as a demonstration project because it was the kind of, Maybe a little less Common ten years ago certainly here and wanted to see if it was something that provided value to the state.

So Limited to one project had even further restrictions that I think it had to be in either Johnson or Wyandotte counties which I think those things sort of combined is what led the way for the gateway project being selected for that and You know that project went forward to construction I think in 2013 somewhere in that in in that time frame and about a 280 to 300 million dollar project.

[00:07:00] So good size project. And lot of good lessons came from that project that, that led into where we find ourselves now. With the, the Ike program and maybe preceding the actual development of the Ike program, a lot of conversation about alternative delivery had by the joint legislative transportation task force that, that was meeting in the Kuhn, Wichita, Over the course of the later part of 2018 a lot of discussion about whether that was something that needed to make its way into a new highway program.

And then I think, you know, as that program was taking, taking shape under you know, at that time, Secretary Lorenz, ACEC, the Contractors Association, there's a lot of, I think, good collaborative dialogue about what would that look like in a new program and what were kind of the appropriate. Guardrails that should be put on On its use and things like that.

So where we stand or at least at the time that it was developed I think it's fairly broad in [00:08:00] terms of the models that are allowed and those sorts of things So in that sense, very very good at least from my perspective It had though some some caveats about you know, a maximum of five hundred million dollars limit on what could be delivered via alternative delivery.

And then at the time, there was a restriction that it had, that it was limited to projects that were 100 million or more in terms of construction cost. Since then, that threshold has been lowered down to 10 million. But at the time it was passed, that was one of the initial restrictions, and then I also think if I'm not mistaken, that there's a restriction that it is not to be used for preservation only projects, so, you know, all those were a lot of good dialogue with legislative leaders and, and KDOT leadership, and, and we're fortunate that they invited the The industry is to be part of that conversation as well as it was being developed.

Scott Heidner: Yeah. Kudos for sure. There's a lot of people that deserve [00:09:00] kudos for how that came together, but secretary Lorenz certainly was, I believe, very intentional about making sure all the industry stakeholders were in early. And those conversations, you know, I was in a lot of them. They were not always super comfortable.

A lot of folks with some concerns and some hard questions. But. You know, we got through those obviously to a place that's most of the stakeholder groups seem to be pretty content with, and as Cameron mentioned, they've already tweaked the legislation to, you know, accommodate new realities as they arise.

But really the purpose of that exercise, most of all, was just to make sure any of our listeners who may not have already known it realize and understand that The KDOT procurement process is really dictated in statute, and it wasn't something that KDOT just at their discretion, or I don't want to say on a whim, but could just have decided to use alternative delivery whenever they felt like it was appropriate.

It needed some statutory [00:10:00] authority and some buy in from the legislature, which was a pretty delicate process to get to where we are today, but I think it worked pretty well.

Cameron McGown: Yeah. So the passage of the Ike program. Got some, got new authority to, to deliver projects via various alternative delivery models.

Maybe let's talk a little bit here about the specific projects that, that are moving forward here now. And Paul, I might ask to start with you. Tell us a little bit about the project that you're leading in DeSoto. How did that how was that selected as a good candidate for alternative delivery?

And then Steve, maybe can I go. Go to you with that same question.

Paul Kulseth: Sure. The what we're working on is the local roads around the Panasonic building that was announced in July of 2022 and they broke ground in November and they have plans to have their plant operational by early 2025. And at the time, I think it was late 24.

So we knew at that time that really [00:11:00] in less than You know, 2. 5 years we had to have something that could support the infrastructure around the plant. We knew at that time that we would see a traffic increase in, say, June of 24. That's holding true. And so we had to have something on the ground in that short time frame.

So, for us really, it was just the need for speed that, that dictated the alternative delivery process. So, when, when you don't have time to plan for a project like that, when you have a development, when you have a short notice, I guess, to get something like that in order you don't have the time to, to put something in the construction pipeline and be ready for it.

It's a unique project because it's a local that is. Really we're working for them, but we're leading the project. So, me, I'm, I'm serving as a project director. We're, we're, KDOT is administering the project, but it's the owner is the city of DeSoto. So, the, all the local infrastructure that we're building are, are city streets for the city of DeSoto.

So it's a, it's a unique interaction between them and, and us. But really, again, going back to the delivery [00:12:00] method, there was really no choice. Other than to use alternative delivery to get to that end goal, to have something in place in the amount of time frame that we had, so.

Cameron McGown: Very good. And just for a little bit of additional context for maybe some of the folks that aren't familiar with the project.

You said it's in and around the Panasonic plant, largely local roads. Can you give us a sense of how long of a project it is? Kind of construction magnitude? Yeah, so the

Paul Kulseth: limits are one of the reasons that Kansas was selected as the location for the Panasonic plant was the It's all within the transportation infrastructure that could be provided.

So 3 exits off of K 10 at Evening Star, Edgerton and Lexington just west of the City of DeSoto is now has been annexed into the city of DeSoto so it's within the city limits, but at the time it was not. Sunflower Army ammunition plant that's there has over 9, 000 acres. There's developable land there.

Panasonic is taking 300 acres of that. There's also to the west, just east of Evening Star, there's 370 acres that are allocated to the Flint Commerce [00:13:00] Center. They've since built and are constructing and nearly, nearly done constructing a 1 million square foot building. That half of that is being Purchased, leased by Panasonic to operate.

So, while we say it's for the Panasonic building, it's, it's really for all the development in the area. Right. It's not just that it's so it's, but I mean, obviously that was the the lead for it, right? At the time the Flint Commerce Center had graded land, but not not a tenant. So, so really once Panasonic had had staked their claim.

That's when really everything got in motion. So, there's, the limits are from Evening Star Road to 95th Street in Lexington. So it's about a three and a half mile stretch there. And then there's a half mile that's south of 103rd Street this old K 10. So it's old K 10 when it's a Lexington Avenue turns into 103rd Street.

And then south of that is a half mile that's, that was Main Avenue is now Astor Parkway. So we have four miles in total. All adjacent to those, those developments, and again near the 3K10 exit. So that's really kind of the the limits of the project.

Cameron McGown: Very good. [00:14:00] Steve, you want to give us a little bit of background about the project that you're leading right now?

Steve Rockers: This is the part that I love. Oh, telling the story of US 69 Express. So hang on this project involves the reconstruction of US 69 from 103rd street on the north end down to 151st street on the south end. And then there's a little gap in the project and we're completing the interchange at 167th street.

The cost of this project is 570 million. It's the biggest project the state of Kansas KDOT has ever done. It's also a first toll lane project. And so that was new. it was one of those things where the MOT, we really needed to kind of work with the contractor to kind of, it was a complex project with, this is the state's contract.

Busiest four lane stretch of highway we have. It carries roughly 80, 000 cars a day. And so, for all those reasons, mainly just with the complexity of the project and the ability to kind of partner with the contractor to put the design together. Because we've done projects before in the past without [00:15:00] benefit of having a contractor there.

And you always kind of scratch your head. How are they going to build this crazy thing? And having a contractor there helps out a lot. In so many ways with, with with part of the procurement process, you, you score them for how they're going to handle impacts to traffic. And so that was kind of a, one of the beneficial tools.

And then also like, we, we were, Overland Park had matching funds ready to go. They were on this big product like this, having Overland Park's participation was key to it. One of the. First things that I kind of talked about was partnering. It was a key part of this project and Overland Park, it's completely in their city limits and they're contributing 30 million dollars to the project and there was a really a need to get this project going as quickly as possible.

Scott Heidner: I will add a personal note. I'm invested Well, of course, I love infrastructure generally. I'm predisposed to that, but I'm excited about this project because the 135th Street exit is what I take to get to one of Kansas great meccas, the Outlaw Cigar Lounge at 135th and [00:16:00] Metcalfe, so we're I knew you were going to mention that, so

Cameron McGown: Yes, we worked closely with Outlaw Cigar Tailored the whole project around that.

Steve Rockers: I always see that place, I never quite knew who Frequent is, so now I can check that box, and now I know who, I was kinda, is that really what it is? And it sounds like it is, so. I suspected all

Scott Heidner: along that it was a primary reason for, you know, This project.

Steve Rockers: Indeed it was. When we talk about 135th Street, we say things like it carries almost as much traffic as U.

S. 69, and we were really careful on how we impacted traffic on 135th Street. Trying to minimize the closure as much as possible. Oh, that's happy

Scott Heidner: news. Happy news. Before we

Cameron McGown: leave this topic all together, though, I do want to make sure that we touch on, you know, these two projects kind of described a little bit about Where they're at, what's included with the projects, kind of size of the project.

Steve, you started to allude a little bit about some of the things that you were looking for within the procurement [00:17:00] process. But these two projects are being delivered via different models. US 69 is design build. The DeSoto project is progressive design build. So I wouldn't mind if you guys take a couple of minutes and just talk a little bit about maybe the differences you see with that benefits that you see with either one of those models.

And, and I'm sure that ought to spark a little bit more conversation. So Paul, maybe if you want to start and then Steve, we'll kick it back to you.

Paul Kulseth: Sure. We're using the progressive design build model for the DeSoto project. So, that's a quality based selection. There, we had a. Six teams that that submitted our for the proposals, and we shortlisted to three.

And so there's a two part process when we, when we shortlisted to those three, then we, we made a selection based on on the quality of the team. There's not a cost estimate to that where that's different in the design build world. So for us, it was going off of what the teams. Approaches to the project were and some different things to it.

I mean, really at a very elementary level, right? There's [00:18:00] not, they don't know a lot about the overall specifics of the project. So, once we select that team, that contractor consultant team, then when we get in, after the selection, we get in the room and we really start breaking down what needs, needs to happen in the design.

So, I think that's probably the biggest difference and Steve can speak to the design build process procurement process as well. Yeah, yeah.

Steve Rockers: So, yeah, and so, on USC 9 we had two teams, so, and we worked through kind of, some partner meetings, yeah, kind of helping them put the proposal together.

And, of course, the proposal was heavily scored. Two, it was scored on a variety of factors, but the two biggest ones was price and then how they handled their, we, there was a sheet they filled out that, Kind of described how they were going to handle the road closures, the Form RC. And it kind of, in that process, it kind of had how many days each team would impact US 69 and all the different ramps.

And they got a score on that. And that's part of the contract still is how many days they, and, and they were on, Put in their contract to account for closures and closures come in [00:19:00] all different shapes and sizes. Some of them are partial closures, major closures, and we kind of had each interchange 119th, 135th, 151st had lines they had to fill out to kind of a document.

And of course, there was also some scoring done for future value, how they're going to handle utilities. And so, when, when we kind of opened the envelopes the prices were. I mean, amazingly close how close they were together for a project of this magnitude. They were within basically a percent of each other.

And then, and the scoring, it was another packed two technical scores. And those were also close. And so we ended up going with the team called U. S. Ignite Express Contractors. And they're, it's a team of you know, Ames and Emory Sapp. And then their partner, their consultant was Parsons and GBA.

Cameron McGown: So you guys kind of touched on some of the difference, differences between the two models, you know, Paul, what you described, you're making a selection largely based on qualifications and approach. And then as you progress the project, you eventually, the pricing is a product of the negotiation with that, [00:20:00] with that team that you've been working with, whereas Steve, you know, on a traditional design build.

Price is often a component of that, and it's a best value selection based on price and other factors, but it's, they are price. Complete proposals from the teams that are submitting there. So the pricing is a product of that competitive process there. So very distinct difference there between the two models, obviously big differences in terms of the effort that's required to propose on those and the, and the time that it takes to work or the time that it can take in order to, to, you know, conduct that procurement and get, and get underway.

So, appreciate you guys spending a little bit of Bit of time covering that. I'll add to that too.

Paul Kulseth: So, I mean, Steve mentioned who was selected. So we selected the Clarkson team with HGR, BHC, and Braun as sub consultants. But we also, the, the other unique aspect of it is that because the design build project process establishes a price at the beginning, with [00:21:00] the progressive design build project, we have We don't know what that cost is until we get into some of the opinions of probable construction costs.

And so we also went through procurement to hire an independent cost estimator. And so that's another unique aspect of this that we haven't done before. So this is KDOT's first Progressive Design Build project. It's our first Venture into the independent cost estimation world too as well And so this it's that that's another unique aspect of it because you don't have that that front end cost To select on you have to develop that along the way.

So

Cameron McGown: yeah, very good. I'm glad you glad you brought that up

Scott Heidner: Well, let me ask you this. We talked about the fact that You know, the giving birth to the legislation was not a completely painless deal because there were different opinions in the industry, both consulting and construction. But we have language and now you guys really are the, are the beta test, you know, outside of the gateway project from the last program.

So now that you've had a chance to have your, you know, toe in the water for a while on [00:22:00] this, What do you find the reaction is of the consultants and contractors with whom you work on your projects? I'm sure they've found some things that maybe were concerned about, actually turned out to be much ado about nothing.

And perhaps there were things they didn't know to be concerned about that they've learned through the process. And to the extent there's any feedback. on the response of units local units of government would love to know, love to know your, your take on their take on the use of alternative delivery.

Paul Kulseth: I can start with that one as well. So really overall for the progressive design build model, it's been overwhelmingly positive. A lot of the aspects, again, like you said, we're kind of learning along the way. Even if a team has had his history with a progressive design build model in the past, each owner, each entity is going to do it, conduct it differently.

So, I think that's part of it. So while they may have had history in another state or another another agency they don't really know how we were going to do it cause they haven't, they don't, we don't have any [00:23:00] background with it. So, so there have been some things that have been learned along the way that, that weren't expected maybe.

But we've worked them out together as a team. And it's been very, very positive process. So overall feedback really not a lot of negative aspects at all really so far. So it's been very smooth process. The team's been working well together and overarchingly very positive. Okay.

Steve Rockers: And so, I kind of take a slight twist this is an alternate delivery project, but for all the reasons I kind of mentioned, it's a big project.

It's a historic project. I think everybody is super excited to be working on it. I mean, we're, we're doing some, this toll lane, 11 noise walls, Build the highway through Peckable's backyards. It's a fun thing and we're all in the office together. I mean, I kind of like to talk about it. It's a real project.

We have some issues at some days reasoned others. And so, and when you're under the, I mean, speaking for the consultants that are in the office, I mean, the design's done. It's not easy. I mean, you are really working hard to get it done. Grind out that sausage and get that project done. And they did it.

I [00:24:00] mean, we, we were able to today's technology kind of take advantage of a lot of teams meetings we had, or during the design of it last year weekly one on one meetings with each one of the different groups, structures, road, MOT. And they were amazed, going amazingly fast. And of course, at the day we were all working together to kind of get this project done.

Project done and and we had some good partner events And so I would kind of call it overall everybody was happy with the product turned out. Very

Scott Heidner: good

Cameron McGown: you also asked, you know the general consulting industry the other partners that that are involved here in the state and their sentiment on that I might Touch on that a little bit from an ACEC perspective and Scott, maybe if you have thoughts from a, you know, on, on the contracting community, but, you know, my, I guess my take on this is having watched some of this evolve over the course of 10 plus years or whatever.

I feel like most consultants are more comfortable with it. They've had more experience with it. I mean, there's lots of other states that do this, a lot of [00:25:00] other entities that do this, that use alternative delivery in some way. And so the comfort level is probably increased, I think, certainly more now than what it was ten years ago.

I think the There's no, there's no question that these projects are a challenge. They, they take effort to go through the procurements and things like that. And so, you know, that's always a concern. I think on the consultant side is they're highly competitive and they're, they require a lot of, a lot of work to go through that.

And eventually, you know, hopefully with the privilege of getting able to actually deliver the job on the backend. So those are some of the concerns that I hear, but I definitely think that there's a lot greater familiarity within the industry. And some of our listeners, if they disagree with that, they know my email address, weigh in if they think I'm mischaracterizing that, but I think that that's generally pretty true.

You know, you mentioned also local units of government, but there are also a lot of them. Municipalities [00:26:00] and things like that that have experience with alternative delivery at this point. I would say that that wasn't the case 10 15 years ago. And so, you know, there's there's a there's cities that deliver projects by a design build or CMGC or progressive design build even so Again, I think there's just a lot more awareness in the industry with it a lot more acceptance of it as a tool That's just part of the delivery tool kit that we have That's the format that we use to get projects like this done.

Scott Heidner: Yeah, I would agree, by the way, if I get emails disputing your analysis, I'll be sure to forward them to you. I think that's right. I can remember 10, 15 years ago we had, you know, members that were just vehemently opposed to alternative delivery, kind of, period. You know, not any gray area about it. And I think now, you know, Everybody at a minimum recognizes it's a permanent part of the fabric moving forward.

You know, how broadly it gets used, that, that will vary. But I think everybody knows [00:27:00] alternative delivery is not going away. And so, you know, you can choose how or whether you embrace that. I'll offer just one comment, and it might be a little too candid because it really, To some extent holds our member firms responsible for part of this.

But I will say as an observer, How much or what kind of experience a firm has doing an alternative delivery project to me as a lay person, but frequently around and visiting with people in the industry, mostly depends on two things. How good is the partnership with the contractor? You know, do you have a truly clear understanding of each other's roles and that sort of good communication versus, you know, a contractor just.

Squeezing you you know, to, to maximize profit every day, that kind of thing. And the other is the sophistication of the owner. You know, a sophisticated owner tends to get a pretty [00:28:00] good RFQ out on the street to give you the best fighting chance of understanding what that project really is going in.

And a sophisticated owner does a better job of flexing throughout the project as things change. So yeah, I would say as an observer, our folks that have had success with a good contractor as a partner on a project with owners that have some, some flexibility and sophistication, you know, I get a lot of good feedback People that don't find themselves in either one of those situations tend to have a lesser taste for alternative delivery in their mouth than the rest.

Cameron McGown: I think that that's, I think that's on, on point and you all know Scott's email address as well. I disagree with that.

Steve Rockers: I think Scott's a, I mean, very good observer. Just a little bit of trivia. On the U. S. Express Project, we have a D. B. requirement for professional services. Oh, that's kind of unique. [00:29:00] State of Kansas hasn't typically, on the construction side, we've done it quite a bit, but this is the first project.

Cameron, any chance you remember what that percentage was?

Cameron McGown: I think it was 20 percent. Okay,

Steve Rockers: it's a pretty healthy number, and so, and especially when you go back to size of the project. And so, we have a, I mean, AIMS and, you know, Ames Emery's tap of the JV joint venture and Ames Parsons and GBEtherly. But there we have a whole host of consultants.

So of course, any big project has a lot of different, I kind of go by people call me for, they say it takes a village. Oh, and this village is large and involves DBEs on both sides, the construction side and the professional services side.

Cameron McGown: Well, very good. So we kind of talked a little bit about how we got to the point where.

There's the opportunity to use alternative delivery. We talked a little bit about how these projects got off and the models that they're using. Can you just give us a little bit of a sense of where do these projects stand or, you know, how far through the project are they? When [00:30:00] do you anticipate being done?

Is there some big significant milestone? That you're up against. Paul, you've already kind of talked about some of the scheduled drivers that are, that are driving a lot of the things there. So maybe Paul, if you want to kind of give us a sense of where we at in, on the DeSoto project.

Paul Kulseth: So we finished procurement in December of 22.

Had the, had a meeting actually after, after Christmas, between New Year's, a virtual meeting to kind of get the team on board. And then we had our first in person meeting first week in January. We met in person for, oh, the next four or five months. We had a 60 percent plans in April. We had final plans in July, but as, as you go with the alternative delivery projects, you're, you're starting construction before the plans are finished.

So we had construction starting in, on June 9th. And so. Really, you know, like I said, before Panasonic broke ground in November of 22, we broke ground six months later well, eight months later. So, in June of 23 we are scheduled to be [00:31:00] complete by December of 24. So, we're well along. We have The first half mile of Astra and the roundabout are complete.

The northbound section of Lexington we built off the east and, and south of, of the existing pavement. That's complete. We have traffic head to head on that. That just happened a few weeks ago. And so now we're starting on the southbound side, and then we've also progressed from Astra West to the Edgerton roundabout.

That'll be complete in the next two weeks. We'll have. Traffic coming from Edgerton down through the Edgerton roundabout over to the Astor roundabout by the end of May, and then we'll try and finish up the rest of that to the west of Edgerton. So, some big wins for the project we've had some utility relocation issues, some other things, but to be able to open the traffic up to have two exits off of K 10 coming up.

Right now we're seeing some backup on K 10 at the Lexington Avenue Interchange. We're really just at capacity or over capacity at certain times at peak hours. So, to be able to open that up in the next few weeks is [00:32:00] gonna really provide a good amount of relief. The Panasonic building itself is seeing around 2, 400 people on site each day.

And so, there's a lot of, a lot of traffic in and out at those shift times. So, again, like we had said before, You know, our goal was to have the infrastructure in place by the time the traffic really increased, and we've seen that. So, still well on progress ahead of schedule in some cases and really have, don't see any reason why we won't make that December deadline.

So, we're on schedule and delivering it at the level that we had expected from the beginning.

Cameron McGown: Well, that's fantastic. So, just to make sure I had the math right in my head, From the time you broke ground to today is 10 months, something like that, somewhere in that ballpark? Yep. And you're probably what percent complete?

Paul Kulseth: Yeah, both from a, from a cost perspective just over 50%, so we're over 50 percent complete. But you know, you look at it really like a, like I was trying to say is that the portion west of [00:33:00] Edgerton is not as highly trafficked. So, the, the piece that we're building right now is gonna Facilitate the traffic in and out.

So the Edgerton roundabout, the Astor roundabout are going to see the most traffic. The Lexington Avenue interchange sees the most traffic, but providing that relief to the West is really going to see something. The Eveningstar roundabout and, and some of the road between Eveningstar and Edgerton is, is as a benefit.

The future is the future build out right now, but that doesn't see the traffic. So really what we built from a important standpoint is well, well more than 50%. So just from an overall cost perspective, over 50. So, yep. A

Cameron McGown: lot of work in nine months. Correct. I

Steve Rockers: had the opportunity to take a tour of Paul's project a couple weeks ago, and there's 2, 400, that's a number, but when you actually see all those folks out there working, it kind of takes your breath away how it's a, they're doing some crazy fast stuff out there.

So

Paul Kulseth: yeah, I've said this before, you don't, I mean, it's a three and a half mile stretch from Eveningstar to Lexington, and you don't see it until you really see some drone footage of it. And that's [00:34:00] kind of where you, where you really kind of see the perspective of everything. And. And again, a lot of these drone images that we, we, we've seen for our project or or the Panasonic team shares with us in, in meetings is that you just see the parking lot filled with cars and you see it, you see that parking lot fill up and then they add more space and then those spaces get taken up and, and you know, when you're in meetings and you hear about, oh, this is when we're doing, so again, I mean, you know, when you have a 4 billion project that's adjacent to what you're doing, there's a lot of activity going on and there's other things that are going on with Evergy providing some power distribution and, and transmission lines in, in the area as well, so there's a lot of activity but again, it's really centered around the Panasonic site in general, so, yeah.

Yes, it's it's quite staggering to watch in person. Those are some big parking lots. They are.

Cameron McGown: Well, Steve, how about, how about you? You want to give us a sense of kind of where things are on the 65? Of course I

Steve Rockers: do. And so I, I, I will start out by saying things are going well. Oh, and of course by that I mean it's on schedule.

We're on the, the year two of our, basically like three year construction. Oh the design was completed last [00:35:00] December, 100 percent done. And yeah, Overall, we're about 40 percent complete with the construction. This project has 26 bridges on it, and 14 are active as we speak. Just 26 bridges. I spent a lot of my career just working on one bridge placement at a time, and to have 26 on one project, 14 all going, that's kind of, Pretty cool thing.

Eight of them are done. And so, this year one of the kind of things that people keep asking me is when the noise wall is going to happen. The footings are starting to go up on the noise wall. There's 11 noise walls and like, 2000 footings for these crazy noises. And some of these footings when you have to factor in the wind.

Depending on the geology, they go down 60 feet deep. And so, 60, six, six, zero, six, zero feet. And it depends on that there's rock underneath there. But and of course of course, what, when, because once you start putting the, the footings and the columns in the ground We should have in the next couple of weeks some panels going in.

So, of course, everybody wants theirs first. And I get asked, how come I can't wait? They can't, we can't just snap a button and have them overnight. And [00:36:00] so, but we are trying to work good. Of course, another thing too, that everybody should kind of, we, for a long time, one of that High accident spots at the Blue Valley Interchange.

Folks for a long time entered kind of, on the left side. And so, here's the drum roll. The next few weeks, we're going to be entering on the right side. That'll be kind of a, another hallelujah moment for the project when folks can enter on the left side. That's the correct side, the right side.

And so that'll be kind of a cool day for us. Oh, that's a, I'm not a structures person, but I'm having fun kind of as a straddle bit and some amazing bridges out there post tensioning type stuff. We got folks coming in from California to post tension these bridge up. And so, yeah. The product is going well we're, we're, like I said, we, it's a real product.

We have some right of way utility issues you name it we have a lot of city streets at College and 100, 119th, 135th, and well, we, because part of the design bill, we're moving those at the same time, and so, but I'm happy to report that we are on schedule. We plan to have We made a promise to have the toll lanes open by the end of 2025, and the project [00:37:00] completely done.

There's that interchange down there at 167th Street. That'll probably be one of the latter parts of the project completed. That will be done in 2026.

Scott Heidner: So I have to ask 60 feet. Now, maybe I'm just being a layperson, maybe I'm the only one here surprised by that, but good lord, do you have a contingency plan in case you strike oil or pierce a T Rex fossil or something?

Steve Rockers: Well, if you do your homework right, that won't happen. I mean, generally, that's why they're so 60 foot deep is to make sure there is no oil down there, right? If there was oil, we'd probably be in a whole different world. But yeah, yeah, there, we, we do a lot of geology prep work to make sure there's no oil in there.

Yeah. So yeah, when you, when these walls get to be 15, 20 feet tall and you got pretty decent wind factor. And oh, and when I first heard that it's like, wow, that's a heck of a footing. It is what it is there. So they're 60

Cameron McGown: feet deep because they go past the oil.[00:38:00]

Scott Heidner: Well, let me ask this. So I appreciate the update on the projects in response to Cameron's question. You know, where are they, but given the amount of activity that has taken place already on both of them you should be, I would assume in good position for, you know, a bit of a lessons learned or What have you found you know, what have you been most excited about the kind of opportunities that opened up that maybe you wouldn't have even foreseen being quite that beneficial?

And conversely, you know, what are some challenges that you've had to partner and overcome that perhaps you didn't predict ahead of time?

Steve Rockers: Paul keeps going first. He's doing a great job. I'll follow in behind his lead. I got my ideas. Okay,

Paul Kulseth: so opportunities really comes down to being able to be flexible.

You said something about being flexible earlier, right? That's one of the big drivers for the progressive design build aspect is that you can be flexible as things are going. We have two developments that are hand happening at the same [00:39:00] time. And so we have a lot of things are going on, like I said, with other other infrastructure improvements are in the area.

So without that, that delivery model, then you can't be as flexible, right? So that's a big opportunity for this project, and we're very happy that we have that model to be able to

adjust and flex as things happen around us There are opportunities for innovation and change in scope as things go. One of the things we haven't touched on yet is that the Progressive Design Build Model has work packages, so we executed an initial work package. We're just finishing up a second work package to do another stretch of the ASTRA pavement that was around some utilities and other things that we couldn't really do before.

So, as other things happen. Those additional work packages can be added. So again, that comes down to, you know, we follow the same process. We develop scope, we come up with the initial cost estimate, we check that cost estimate, we, we get the two teams together, three teams together, really, with the independent cost estimators.

And we come to an agreement on the scope. While the first process was more, not [00:40:00] painstaking, but more involved, right? We had to get to that, that initial cost estimate for the overall project. Once you do that once, the, The next pieces of the next work practice, they're really streamlined. So, this last piece that we had was, was fairly, fairly painless.

So, very, very streamlined and that was good. So, really just, you know, creative problem solving flexibility. Those are really a lot of the opportunities and benefits that we're seeing. So,

Steve Rockers: Sure. So for me, one of the things that I was so thankful for is that the Colocate office and this product kind of started on kind of when COVID was getting.

Wrapping up and getting done, but oh I'm kind of, those 32 years I referenced early experience, that means I'm an old school guy. I like having people in the office. Oh the teamwork, the chemistry we have with Design Build the partnerships we got, this is a complicated product and it's comp, and, The ability to get things done.

One of the things that we did on this project, a little different than the gateway was we took the lead on finding the office. Oh, I kind of go back to it. It's kind of how you start sometimes as to how things can go in. And we started on a [00:41:00] great foot. And I kind of take a with ability. That because what that means is a contractor, as soon as they They were able to, they moved in immediately as soon as the office was ready and took it over.

And so we hit the ground running and I do that and the office was a great location. It's right next to the project. And so I was thankful that KDOT kind of gave us the opportunity to, because we didn't, because typically some, sometimes a project will let the contractor find the office and do that work.

And so that takes time to do. And since we kind of did it for the contractor I kind of, I Take that as a kind of a, oh, a big thing. I kind of, the partnering aspect of it, just whenever we have an issue, to be able to walk down the hall and talk to the contractor or whoever we need to when things happen so fast on this project.

And so, and, and that's kind of what, you know, I go in there and kind of just kind of observe and take on the, what's on and that, that to me is you can't. To me if you want to be able to win a successful project, in my opinion, you kind of have to have a cool looking office. I know the world's moving [00:42:00] and things are, a lot of things going on, but I just can't oversell the importance that people being in the office trying to get things done.

And so, and of course that's kind of stuff. And just kind of the innovation stuff that kind of, because we do, we do I mean, oh, we're in office together. We have some partnering events. We do offsite in the parking lot and, and, and, and all being in the office together is the key part there. So, now , other lessons learned mean, we learned that kind of, you, you, you find out how good your contract is as you start building along, and we kind of put a high emphasis on minimizing.

Impacts traffic. And of course, what that did is this product involves, I mean, these guys are working six days a week, 24 hours a day, a lot of nighttime work and and on, on the city streets and on the highway. And of course, we're doing that to kind of minimize, cause they constructed out of their pavement on US 69, but we also, and we started out.

Oh, we're doing some, you know, removal of some at 139th Street. We took one half of the box on the west side down at nighttime. And oh, in today's fancy world, there [00:43:00] was folks, we were in people's backyards. And yeah, as luck would have it, got on TV. And so, That's the other part is when you're working on it, I mean, I've worked on products all across the state, but when you're working, I keep going back to, there's so many people watching this project.

And so we kind of had to speak to it and of course, and we kind of didn't own, we kind of changed some of our philosophy on city street work and this past spring rather than do it at nighttime. Cause I have to admit. Oh. The video I saw that was on TV was a little brutal. It showed that the jack hammer and everything and and it was truly in people's backyards,

And so this spring we kind of, learned from our, learned from that, and we did during the daytime. And of course there was impacts of traffic differently than the daytime. And of course we kinda had to speak to that. But that kind of the other story. The neighborhood kind of appreciated it. We had a lot of meetings with the neighborhood and kind of understood their concerns.

And so, flexibility, I guess, is something you kind of have to be a part of the project. Cause yeah. Cause this, oh, and when they, when they were putting it on, [00:44:00] oh yeah, I, there's a lot of good stories about working on a busy highway in people's backyards.

Scott Heidner: I will not ask you to classify this unexpected TV opportunity, whether that falls under unanticipated strengths or challenges.

Well,

Steve Rockers: and of course the other lesson learned that I've kind of just got a little fun here is that I, I I've gotten a lot, I've kind of seemed like people don't watch the news as much as they, I thought they did. I used to get kind of spooked by getting on TV and I seem like I'm getting on TV and it's getting a little more comfortable, but I don't think people watch TV.

That news as much as I used to, but I guess I have, when I have a time or two been called in to spot on the question. And for some reason or another, I've been fortunate enough to be here. Lawrence. Oh kind of, have a dentist appointment, so I can't make it then. So one time I had a call to be interviewed and I couldn't make it because I lucky day to have a dentist appointment.

Scott Heidner: speaks volumes about your appetite for being on TV. When you say, thank God I had a dentist appointment. Dentist appointment. Yes.

Steve Rockers: Yes. Yeah. [00:45:00] And of course I, I do have some good coaching on this and I do take that coaching very seriously because I, oh, but yeah, that day, it was a good day that I kind of had to miss being on TV.

So yeah.

Paul Kulseth: I'll, I'll second what Steve is saying too about the co location office. I didn't touch on that, but that's by far one of the big takeaways for our project too, that we're all in the same office together and we, you know, we're all in the same office. Sit in the conference room and meet each other.

We have a lot of hours together. A lot of hours sitting at a big table in front of a couple screens and some people are virtual and some people are in person, but a lot of work gets done in that office being in person. A lot of decisions get made and sometimes when you're working at the pace that we are that you have to have those decisions made on the spot and so to be able to have that That group setting where you can sit there and weigh on things together is, is by far one of the big things.

And I will stand by that too. That's one of the, I'll be a proponent for that. If anybody asks me that that's one of the things that we really need to prioritize is that the groups stay in the same place and work together each day to develop that relationship [00:46:00] so they can have that, that decision making environment.

So

Cameron McGown: Very good. Well, I appreciate you guys perspective on that. You know, maybe short of predicting the future on how many more times Steve's going to be on TV. You know, can you guys give us a little bit of thought about, you know, where, where are things going? We've just spent a good bit of time here, kind of diving into these two projects, but they're, they're just two projects out of all the things that, that, you know, that KDOT is delivering as part of its mission here for the state of Kansas.

Give us your guys perspective a little bit on kind of what you see as the Future of alternative delivery with KDOT.

Paul Kulseth: Well, we'll handle these on a case by case basis moving forward. I mean, that's kind of been the that's our perspective on things, at least. We'll We'll continue to monitor the two projects we're [00:47:00] in and evaluate how they're doing.

They could be used, the models that we're in could be used on future projects as well. I'll

Steve Rockers: stick my neck out just a little bit. I mean, it's not going away. We already said that. And of course I've worked on a lot of projects over the years and, and I mean, this alternate delivery is a tool in the toolbox.

And most of our KDOT projects, with the really simple, your bread and butter payment replacement or your bridge replacement, You don't need alternate delivery. You can kind of, but when you have very complex projects in big cities with a lot of somewhat urgency to go fast, I think alternate delivery will always be something KDOT will kind of look at as an option.

Scott Heidner: Before we close, I would, Cameron, maybe pose the same question to you. You've worked on, you know, these KDOT project specifically, but also obviously worked on other alternative delivery things elsewhere. Do you have a thought on what the future holds here?

Cameron McGown: Well, I think I'd actually maybe align with some of Paul's comments.

I [00:48:00] really think that. The right application has much more to do with the specifics of the job. What are you trying to accomplish? What are the risks? What's the market environment? You know, all, you know, all those things have to be considered before you make a decision on whether alternative delivery is the right You know, the right path to go down, and I'd see that as, is it alternative delivery, yes or no, is the first part of that, because then the next layer is, well, what style of alternative delivery best accomplishes the things, or best mitigates the risks that you see.

So I think it's kind of a two part analysis there. You know, there are, I think that there are plenty of good projects that, Could be good candidates. You have to dive into each one of them a little bit of a deeper layer to understand whether the right answer is yes. But yeah, there, I, if I was looking into my crystal ball, I would bet that KDOT will do another [00:49:00] alternative delivery job down the line, maybe but I'm sure it will be thoughtfully considered as to whether that's the right approach and, and what model makes sense beyond that.

But that's, that'd be my prediction. But again, I don't know. I don't know.

Scott Heidner: The future is hard to predict in all cases. Well, I want to personally thank all three of you for being on the show today. Both Steve and Paul, our guests and Cameron for co hosting with me. This is an extremely relevant topic to our members.

I mean, procurement and alternative delivery is something they face every day. And I think a lot of them will appreciate and benefit from hearing from you guys as well. The Sherpas for these two projects here in Kansas and, and what you've learned along the way from it. So thanks to you both for all your partnership, but specifically for making time to be with us today.

Steve Rockers: Thanks for letting us talk about them. Yeah, you bet.

Scott Heidner: Absolutely. All right. Well, listeners, thank you for tuning in. We will catch you again on the next [00:50:00] episode of the QBS Express.