Fall Reflections: Part 2

A client recently asked “why are your fees higher than last time?”

A bit of context… the question was in regard to Phase 2 of a larger renovation. The entire project was originally designed, comprehensively, under a separate fee. To accommodate budgets and schedules, it was split into two different, equal sized phases, for construction. Thus, we ended up with a bidding/CA service for Phase 1 (that had just wrapped up) and had just proposed the bidding/CA service for Phase 2, over a year later from the original Phase 1 proposition.

So why oh why would an architect increase their fees? Hmmm…

For starters we also added in some additional design scope in the form of some possible add alternates, in case bidding conditions were favorable and more work could be taken on under the client’s budget. While it wouldn’t necessarily affect what the owner could afford on bid day, this additional scope of course was not designed yet.

Second, I don’t know about you, but my water bill is higher than it was last year. Also, my property taxes went up. Oh, by the way, the cost of construction on another project went up by nearly 70% from 3 years ago… but sure, I’ll keep charging my 2023 fees for 2024. Maybe we’ll have one of those sales on our 100th anniversary where we charge fees from 1930! I kid, of course – though Harold Spitznagel was paid in baked goods for one of his first commissions. Yum.

But one of the biggest reasons our fee went up? Lessons learned. This particular client utilizes a low-bid award method like many institutions do, and while that may seem good for competition, it takes more work for all parties (owner and architect) to ensure that the owner is receiving the same quality level of delivery from the low-bid contractor as they would, say, a more reasonable and competent contractor. It takes better contracts, more communication, more hand-holding, and ultimately more time. And time is money in this business.

John Ruskin, 19th century writer and critic of everything arts related (including architecture), summed up the concern pretty well.

It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money – that’s all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot – it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better

• -John Ruskin

Yeah, that’s why our fees went up – due to the risk we run to lose everything, because the contractor hired might not actually be capable of doing the work required…

The fix?

Radically, a wholesale shift of what we consider as architectural services. We used to be the coordinator of bids, run the entire project, work directly with (and celebrate) the skilled trades (see this article about Richard Morris Hunt), and facilitate the construction schedule. We used to do so much more, and now we sit back and complain, like this post, when the people who supposedly took over those tasks don’t do it how we see fit.

Less radically, we do what we did – charge higher fees to take on more work (not too far different from the radical example above). This is value to the client to ensure that they will get what they thought they were paying for, and hopefully not at risk of losing the entire project itself.

Ultimately, you get what you pay for. If you don’t choose a competent (and likely more expensive) contractor, you’ll likely need to pay more to your architect to triple check that the construction goes well, or you’ll pay for it on the back end with constant issues on the project and mistakes where the fix is worse than just leaving it as is.