Commonly known as the “hard bid” because this service comes from a competitive bidding process, where the project owner and architect collaborate on the design and complete plans, with no input from a General Contractor, and release their request for proposal to a select group of General Contractors or for Public Bid. The project is then competitively bid amongst other General Contractors and the General Contractor with the lowest bid is then awarded the contract. An unfortunate side effect of this process occurs through potential oversights during plan development that are discovered in the bidding process and can add cost or even send the proposals over budget and back to the drawing board. Hard bids are reliant on the owner’s relationship with their architects and is the most contentious form of bidding from a General Contractor’s perspective.
