When Lori Kahikina joined the Honolulu Rapid Transit Authority in 2021, its reputation was “horrible,” she recalled. Costs and delays for a planned 20-mile light rail project, the first fully automated system in the US, to be built in three phases, had been mounting and public support was waning.
He let go of non-essential staff, scrapped a public-private partnership plan for the third segment and “asked for help” from various city agencies and construction experts, he told attendees at the annual conference of the Construction Management Association of America, held in San Francisco from October 24 to 29.
Without cultivating relationships and breaking down silos within the agency, “we couldn’t have opened the first segment,” he said. The first 10-mile section opened last year, with the second 5-mile section to follow in 2025. This summer HART awarded Tutor Perini Extensive a $1.6 billion contract for the third 3-mile section and six seasons.
Kahikina also revoked a $400 million indefinite delivery/indefinite amount contract, then had lunch with the contractor to explain his reasons, he recalled. He eventually won a new contract.
Construction managers should “understand the big picture” of a project and proactively get involved in problem solving rather than just relaying messages between owners and contractors, he said.
She and other panelists at the conference conveyed that communication and documentation at every stage of a project is key to its success, including minimizing complaints and community opposition.
At the Port of Los Angeles, after a project is completed, “we get the whole team together … and go over the issues we had,” said Charles Adams, deputy chief port engineer. “The lessons learned are documented and the report is in a place where everyone can access it.”
In addition, the port leads mid-design constructability reviews and has designers make a presentation to reviewers, he added, comparing the process to renovating an apartment while working with tenants.
The agency holds quarterly contractor sessions and uses “full documentation,” including meeting minutes, inspector reports and camera photos of construction sites. If a conflict with a contractor can’t be resolved quickly, “we bring in an unbiased consultant to tell us what we’re not seeing,” he said.
The Port of Long Beach started a risk assessment program in 2012 and established a risk registry by 2023, said Angel Palma, the port’s senior civil engineer. The 30% designs are run through a Monte Carlo simulation, producing a thousand iterations in order to establish a contingency fund, he said. After the project is completed, a lessons-learned workshop is held and new risks are added to a database, he said.
The city of San Jose relies heavily on its construction manager consultant Stantec to help it execute a 10-year, $1.4 billion capital plan and navigate a learning curve with design-build, he said Kapil Verma, Deputy Director of Capital Improvement Projects. “Why did we need a CM on a design-build job? We softened the blow on the learning curve,” he said.
The city has done three design-build jobs, including a new $114 million cogeneration facility and two low-cost design-build jobs, he noted.
The method hasn’t necessarily made projects go faster or cheaper, added Mariana Chávez-Vázquez, general director of the San Jose Regional Water Facility. “We manage risk better.”
