Appendix K — The Willow Street Community Center Project Package

This is the project you manage. Every chapter in this book ends with a Project Checkpoint that adds one deliverable to your Willow Street notebook, and every one of those checkpoints assumes you are holding this package. Forty-two deliverables, one building, one contract, one set of numbers that have to keep agreeing with each other from the first estimate to the final lien waiver.

Read Chapter 1 first if you have not. Then come here, read §K.1 through §K.4 once, and go build something.

K.1 How to use this package

It is described, not drawn

There are no drawings in this appendix. There is a described drawing set — a real sheet index, and then written descriptions of the sheets that carry the information you need, at the level of detail a takeoff actually requires: dimensions, elevations, schedules, quantities of countable things, and the notes that matter.

That sounds like a compromise. It is not. A drawing is a compressed instruction, and the skill this book trains is decompression — turning a set into quantities, sequences, risks, and money. When you read "forty-two punched aluminum windows in four types totaling 900 square feet," you do exactly the work a real sheet would demand: decide the unit, decide the waste factor, decide whether the frame perimeter belongs to the window subcontract or the caulking subcontract, and write down the assumption. None of that gets easier because the source is a paragraph. It also removes the one thing that makes textbook drawing exercises useless — the answer is not hiding in a graphic you cannot zoom. Every number you need is here in words, and every number you do not find here is a gap you must handle the way you would handle it on a real project.

Which brings us to the important part.

What to do when the package does not tell you

It will not tell you everything. That is deliberate, and it is realistic — no bid set is complete, and the professional skill is not finding the answer, it is deciding, recording, and pricing the decision.

So the rule for this project, and for every project you will ever run:

When the documents do not answer a question, do not stop and do not guess silently. State an assumption, write it down where somebody else can find it, price it, and say who owns it if you are wrong.

That is the entire discipline of the basis of estimate (Chapter 12 §12.10) and the qualifications and clarifications page (Chapter 15 §15.6). Use this format every time:

Aim for at least twelve stated assumptions on your Chapter 12 takeoff. If you have fewer than eight, you have not been honest with yourself about how many decisions you made.

Two standing cautions

Everything here is illustrative. Willow Street is a Tier-3 composite: a fictional building for a fictional department of a fictional city, staffed by fictional people, priced with teaching numbers. It is internally consistent so the arithmetic teaches something real. It is not a price book, it is not a code, and it is not legal advice.

Nothing here overrides your jurisdiction. Permit sequences, lien and notice deadlines, retention limits, prompt-payment rules, prevailing-wage thresholds, licensing, stormwater requirements, and building and fire codes vary by jurisdiction and change over time. Where this package states a number, treat it as this project's number for the purpose of the exercise, and go find your own.

K.2 The project at a glance

The numbers to memorize

Everything in your notebook eventually reduces to four figures. Learn them now.

Note the ratio. Willow Street's daily exposure is 0.041% of contract value per day; Northgate's is 0.022%. The small job hurts more per day, relative to its size, than the big one. That is not a quirk of these two projects. It is what happens when a fixed staff and a fixed liquidated-damages rate sit on top of a smaller contract, and it is why the schedule discipline on a $6.8 million job is not optional.

K.3 The owner, the design team, and who can direct you

Every person and firm below is a Tier-3 illustrative composite — invented for teaching, not drawn from any real organization or individual.

The owner

The City of Rivermont is a municipal corporation. The Willow Street Community Center is funded from a voter-approved parks bond, which matters more than it sounds: bond funds carry their own reporting, their own audit exposure, and a political constituency that reads the newspaper.

🚩 The authority question — read this twice

Only Everett Nakashima can direct you, and only in writing. Everyone else can ask.

That distinction is worth money on this job, because Yolanda Prieto is enthusiastic, present on site, and has strong opinions about her building. She is also the reason your notebook needs a confirming-letter template (Chapter 26 §26.7.1) before you need it. A parks director who says "while you're in there, could you make the gym storage room a little bigger" on a Thursday afternoon has not issued a change order. If you build it, you built it for free — and you will have spent your own money making a friend who cannot pay you.

Write the authority line into the kickoff-meeting minutes, put it in every subcontract, and post it in the trailer. See Chapter 19 §19.4.1 and Appendix G.

The design team

The neighbors

The school is the binding constraint on this project. It sets the gate locations, the truck route, the delivery blackouts, the crane windows, the traffic-control plan, the water-main shutdown, and the worker-parking solution. If any logistics decision you make ignores 7:45 and 3:15, redo it. See Chapter 17 §17.4 and Chapter 18 §18.3.

K.4 The program

Gross building area 24,000 SF. First floor 14,000 SF (the footprint); second floor 10,000 SF. The gymnasium is a 4,000 SF double-height volume with no floor above it — which is exactly why the second floor is 10,000 SF and not 14,000.

First floor — 14,000 SF

Second floor — 10,000 SF

Occupant loads above are design figures for this exercise only. Actual occupant load is determined by the adopted code, the use classification, and the building official. Confirm before you rely on any of it for egress, plumbing-fixture counts, or ventilation.

The five program items that carry disproportionate cost and risk

1. The gymnasium. A 4,000 SF room that consumes a 50-ft clear span, 24 feet of height, its own roof structure, a specialty floor with a moisture-emission requirement, and two of the four rooftop units. It is 17% of the floor area and closer to 25% of the trouble.
2. The commercial kitchen. Health-department review, a Type I hood, a makeup-air unit, a grease exhaust duct with clearance requirements, a grease interceptor outside the building, a separate gas service, and equipment with a long lead. Six trades touch one room. See §K.12, discrepancy 6.
3. The locker rooms. Twelve showers, twelve water closets, twelve lavatories, and two urinals in 1,400 SF, all draining to under-slab sanitary at a fixed slope. Gravity wins every coordination argument in this room — everything else moves.
4. The operable partition. A moving wall needs a structural support above it with a stated deflection limit, and the manufacturer will tell you so in a submittal that arrives after the floor is framed. See §K.12, discrepancy 10.
5. The wood-framed second floor. Cheap, fast, and a water-damage exposure your steel-and-CMU first floor is not. It also caps every duct and pipe crossing it, because you cannot drill an engineered joist outside the manufacturer's hole chart.

K.5 The described drawing set

K.5.1 Drawing index

110 sheets, issued for bid, Rev. 0. Two addenda were issued during bidding (Addendum 1: 6 sheets revised; Addendum 2: 4 sheets revised plus the geotechnical report attached for information). Sheets revised by addendum carry Rev. 1.

That is a set you can genuinely read cover to cover in two days, which is the point of doing this exercise on a $6.8 million building instead of a $47.5 million one. Read all of it.

K.5.2 C-1.1 — Site plan

Site: 420 ft along Willow Street (south) × 218 ft deep = 91,560 SF = 2.10 acres. Rectangular. Flat: existing grades run from elevation 98.4 at the southwest corner to 101.2 at the northeast, a total relief of 2.8 feet across the whole site. Finished first-floor elevation is 100'-0" project datum, which corresponds to survey elevation 101.5.

The building is a 175 ft (east–west) × 80 ft (north–south) rectangle = 14,000 SF, set toward the north-center of the site: 62 ft from the north property line, 76 ft back from the south (Willow Street) right-of-way line, 118 ft from the west line, 127 ft from the east line.

The existing 8-inch water main crosses the site east–west, approximately 60 ft north of the Willow Street right-of-way line — directly under the future parking field and the future truck loop.

                       H O L L I S   P A R K   (wooded, no access)              N ^
   ============ tree protection fence, 15 ft inside north property line ===========
   +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |                          62 ft setback to building                         |
   |   +---------------------+ +-------------------------------------------+    |
   |   |    GYMNASIUM        | |                                           |    | P
   |   |    50 x 80          | |   TWO-STOREY BLOCK  125 x 80              |    | U
   |   |    4,000 SF         | |   10,000 SF / floor                       |    | B
   |   |    24'-0" clear     | |   13'-0" and 11'-0" floor to floor        |    | L
   R   |    steel joist roof | |   wood 2nd floor on steel + CMU           |    | I
   E   +---------------------+ +-------------------------------------------+    | C
   S              |<------------------ 175 ft ------------------>|              |
   I                                                                            | W
   D      ....... EXISTING 8" WATER MAIN (relocate, 340 LF) ...................  | O
   E                                                                            | R
   N      [ DETENTION ]              PARKING — 96 stalls, 4 accessible          | K
   T          BASIN                  4,200 SY asphalt / 1,850 LF C&G            | S
   I                                                                            |
   A          <--------- 76 ft building setback to R.O.W. --------->            | Y
   L    [ bus drop / former maintenance shed footprint, demolished ~15 yr ago ] | D
   |                                                                            |
   +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |<--------------------------- 420 ft frontage ----------------------------->|
   ============== W I L L O W   S T R E E T   (2 lanes, parking both sides) =====
      [crossing guard]        [school bus loop]        [parent drop-off]
                     D A N F O R T H   E L E M E N T A R Y   S C H O O L

Also shown on C-1.1: 96 permanent parking stalls (4 accessible, 2 van), a bus drop-off pull-out on the frontage, a refuse enclosure with a concrete pad at the southeast, a fire lane loop with a 45-ft inside turning radius, 7,400 SF of concrete sidewalk and entry plaza, bike racks, and site lighting.

K.5.3 A-101 — First-floor plan

North–south building depth 80 ft; east–west length 175 ft. Column grid: A through F east–west at 35 ft, 1 through 3 north–south at 40 ft. The gymnasium occupies grids A–B (the west 50 ft), full depth. The two-storey block occupies grids B–F.

• Gymnasium, grids A–B: 50 ft × 80 ft clear. Court striped 74 ft × 42 ft running north–south, plus two cross-courts. Wall pads to 6'-0" on all four walls. Two ceiling-suspended backstops. Motorized divider curtain on the grid-A/B centerline.
• Gym storage, 400 SF, northeast corner of the gym, overhead coiling door to the gym floor.
• Lobby and control desk, grid B–C at the south face, with the main entry vestibule projecting 10 ft south under a 25 ft × 40 ft standing-seam metal entry canopy.
• Multipurpose Rooms A and B, grids C–D, south side, 1,100 SF each, separated by a motorized operable partition on the grid-line between them, with direct access to the kitchen serving counter.
• Commercial kitchen, grid D, north side, 900 SF, with dry/cold storage and dish, 300 SF, to the east. Two overhead coiling serving shutters to the multipurpose rooms. Receiving door on the north elevation.
• Locker rooms (men's, women's, family), grid E, north side, sharing a common plumbing wall.
• Public restrooms, custodial, mechanical/electrical/fire riser, grid F.
• Stair 1 at grid B (adjacent to the gym), Stair 2 at grid F. Elevator adjacent to Stair 2.

K.5.4 A-102 — Second-floor plan

10,000 SF over grids B–F only; no floor over the gymnasium. The gym's east wall (grid B) is the second floor's west boundary and is a full-height CMU wall from slab to roof bearing.

• Fitness / weight room, grids B–C, 1,850 SF, along the north side.
• Group exercise / dance studio, grid C, 1,050 SF.
• Administrative office suite, grids D–E, south side, 1,500 SF, plus a 420 SF conference room.
• Youth room (900 SF), teen room (640 SF), arts and crafts (700 SF), grids E–F.
• Restrooms (2), staff break, storage, mechanical/IT/electrical, grid F.
• Corridor runs east–west on the building centerline, 6'-0" clear, with the elevator lobby at grid E.

Floor-plan block diagram — both levels. Not to scale; blocks are proportional to area.

  FIRST FLOOR — 14,000 SF                                          N ^
  GRID:  A          B          C          D          E          F
       +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
       |          |   GYM    | KITCHEN  | LOCKER   | MECH /   |
       |          |  STORAGE | 900 +    | ROOMS    | ELEC /   |
       |  GYMNA-  |   400    | STOR 300 | M 700    | RISER    |   north
       |  SIUM    +----------+----------+ W 700    | 620      |   side
       |          |  STAIR 1 |          + FAM 180  +----------+
       |  4,000SF |  ELEV    |==== C O R R I D O R ====| STAIR 2|
       |          +----------+----------+----------+----------+
       |  50 x 80 |  LOBBY / | MULTI-   | MULTI-   | PUBLIC   |
       |          |  CONTROL | PURPOSE  | PURPOSE  | RESTRMS  |   south
       |  24'-0"  |  DESK    |    A     |    B     |  440     |   side
       |  clear   |  1,050   |  1,100   |  1,100   | CUSTOD.  |
       +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
                   [ ENTRY CANOPY 25 x 40, standing seam ]
       |<--50 ft->|<--------------- 125 ft --------------->|
                             ^ operable partition, A|B
                             ^ serving shutters, kitchen to multipurpose

  SECOND FLOOR — 10,000 SF   (no floor over the gymnasium)
  GRID:  A          B          C          D          E          F
       +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
       |          |     FITNESS /       | YOUTH    | TEEN /   |
       |  OPEN    |     WEIGHT ROOM     | ROOM     | CRAFTS   |   north
       |  TO      |        1,850        |   900    | 1,340    |   side
       |  GYM     +----------+----------+----------+----------+
       |  BELOW   |==== C O R R I D O R ==========| ELEV LBY  |
       |          +----------+----------+---------+-----------+
       |          |  GROUP   |  ADMIN OFFICE SUITE | RESTRMS  |
       |  (24 ft  |  EXER /  |       1,500         | 420      |   south
       |  volume) |  STUDIO  +----------+----------+ MECH/IT  |
       |          |  1,050   | CONF 420 | BREAK 260| 420      |
       +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+

K.5.5 A-103 — Roof plan

Total roof area 14,000 SF, of which:

Drainage: 8 roof drains and 8 overflow drains (6 + 6 on the main roof, 2 + 2 on the gym), tapered insulation crickets to each. Parapet all around at elevation 127'-6" with continuous metal coping, 510 LF.

Rooftop equipment: RTU-1 and RTU-3 on the gymnasium roof; RTU-2 and RTU-4 on the main roof; MAU-1 (kitchen makeup air) and EF-1 (kitchen grease exhaust) on the main roof above the kitchen; EF-2, EF-3, EF-4 at toilet, locker, and custodial exhaust. Two roof hatches with ships ladders. Total roof penetrations, all trades: 35.

K.5.6 A-301 and A-302 — Building sections

A-301 — longitudinal section, east–west through the gymnasium and the two-storey block.

   El. 127'-6"  ___________________________________  parapet, coping over
                |    TPO / tapered polyiso        |
   El. 124'-0"  |=================================|  roof bearing / T.O. steel & truss
                |         |                       |
                |  GYM    |  2ND FLOOR  11'-0"    |  wood trusses @ 24" o.c.
                | 24'-0"  |                       |
   El. 113'-0"  | clear   |=======================|  T.O. subfloor / 2nd floor
                |         |                       |  14" wood I-joists @ 16" o.c.
                |         |  1ST FLOOR  13'-0"    |  16" total floor depth
   El. 100'-0"  |_________|_______________________|  T.O. slab  (survey el. 101.5)
                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   finished grade el. 99.2 typical
   El.  96'-4"  ---------------------------------   T.O. footing (typical)
       |<--50'-->|<----------- 125' ------------>|

Critical dimensions from A-301, all of which you will use:

A-302 — transverse section, north–south through the multipurpose rooms, kitchen, and locker rooms. Shows the operable partition head condition, the kitchen hood and grease-duct riser to the roof, the locker-room plumbing chase, and the corridor ceiling cavity. Over the cook line, the clear plan width between the hood and the walk-in cooler wall is 9'-4".

K.5.7 A-401 through A-403 — Wall sections and roof details

K.5.8 S-101 — Foundation plan

Spread footings at columns; continuous strip footings under all CMU bearing and foundation walls. Slab on grade throughout.

Footing schedule (S-101):

K.5.9 S-201 and S-202 — Framing plans

S-201 — Second-floor framing plan (elevation 113'-0"), grids B–F only.

• 14-inch engineered wood I-joists at 16 inches on centre, spanning north–south, bearing on the exterior CMU walls and on interior steel beams.
• Steel beams and columns on grids C, D, and E carry the interior joist bearing lines. Wide-flange beams with a maximum span of 35 ft.
• 3/4-inch tongue-and-groove sheathing, glued and nailed, plus 3/4-inch underlayment at wet areas. Total floor system depth 16 inches.
• Framed area 11,200 SF (10,000 SF of floor plus stair, elevator, and rim framing).
• Note: no beam is shown at the operable-partition line between Multipurpose A and B.

S-202 — Roof framing plan (bearing elevation 124'-0").

Gym joists are marked J-1 through J-24 on grids A through E. The joist schedule on S-202 lists 26 joist marks. Bearing detail 4/S-501 shows the joist bearing plate on a continuous bond beam at elevation 123'-4"; the plan shows bearing at 124'-0".

K.5.10 Schedules

Door schedule — A-601. The schedule lists 92 openings. The plans (A-101 and A-102) show 96.

Hardware sets: 14 sets, including panic hardware at all egress doors, card access at 6 exterior and 4 interior openings, and closers at all rated openings.

Window schedule — A-602. Thermally broken aluminum, punched openings.

Storefront, thermally broken aluminum with 1-inch insulating glass: lobby vestibule, multipurpose room south wall, and the gym entry. Total 1,180 SF. The elevations note "1-inch insulating glass, tinted."

Finish schedule — A-603 (summary).

Equipment schedules.

K.6 Specifications, described

The project manual is one volume, 168 pages, 61 sections across Divisions 00 through 33. Below is what each part of it actually requires. These are summaries written for this exercise. No real specification text is quoted anywhere in this appendix.

⚠️ Ten deliberate discrepancies are planted between the drawings described in §K.5 and the specifications summarized below. Finding them is your Chapter 7 deliverable. The answers are in §K.12 — do not read that section until you have run all six passes and written all ten log entries.

K.6.1 Division 00 — Procurement and contracting requirements

Invitation to bid · instructions to bidders · bid form with three add alternates and one deduct alternate · bid bond at 5% of the base bid · the Agreement (stipulated sum) · General Conditions · Supplementary Conditions · payment and performance bond forms · the applicable prevailing wage determination · certified payroll form and statement of compliance · non-collusion affidavit.

The order-of-precedence clause lives in the Supplementary Conditions. Willow Street uses a stated hierarchy, which is common in owner-drafted municipal contracts and is not the complementary regime you may be used to:

Illustrative clause, drafted for this exercise: "In the event of conflict among the Contract Documents, precedence shall be: (1) executed modifications and change orders, in reverse order of issue; (2) the Agreement; (3) the Supplementary Conditions; (4) the General Conditions; (5) addenda, in reverse order of issue; (6) Division 01 requirements; (7) technical specification Sections; (8) drawings. Where a conflict exists within the same rank, or between drawings of the same discipline, the more stringent requirement shall govern and the Contractor shall request the Architect's interpretation before proceeding. Figured dimensions govern over scaled dimensions; large-scale details govern over small-scale drawings."

Read that carefully, because it does three things at once. It puts specifications above drawings. It applies "more stringent governs" as the tiebreaker within a rank — which is brutal, because it means you price the worse reading of every ambiguity you do not resolve. And it still requires you to ask before proceeding. Copy it into your Chapter 7 order-of-precedence memo, verbatim, and hand a copy to your superintendent.

K.6.2 Division 01 — General requirements (the sections that carry money)

K.6.3 Technical sections by division — described

Division 02 — Existing conditions. Site clearing and grubbing; removal of the abandoned bus-drop apron and the former maintenance-shed slab; protection of the Hollis Park tree line; erosion and sediment control per the approved plan.

Division 03 — Concrete (03 30 00). 4,000 psi concrete at footings, foundation walls, and slabs on grade; 3,000 psi at exterior flatwork. Air entrainment for exterior work. Vapor retarder under all interior slabs. Curing and joint-filling requirements. The section states the slab on grade shall be 6 inches thick. Flatness and levelness tolerances stated for the general slab, with a tighter tolerance under the athletic floor. Reinforcing furnished, fabricated, delivered, and installed; concrete testing by the City's laboratory, with the contractor responsible for access and standby.

Division 04 — Masonry (04 20 00). 8-inch normal-weight concrete masonry units, running bond; Type S mortar; vertical reinforcing with grouted cells at the spacing shown on the structural drawings; bond beams at bearing and at the top of walls; joint reinforcement; cold-weather and hot-weather masonry provisions; prism testing and grout inspection by the City's laboratory. Modular face brick veneer, running bond, with adjustable ties, through-wall flashing, end dams, weeps at 24 inches on centre, and mortar-collection mesh in the cavity. Cleaning method specified.

Division 05 — Metals (05 12 00, 05 21 00, 05 31 00, 05 50 00). Structural steel frame, columns and beams, shop-primed. Open-web steel joists and joist girders over the gymnasium, with a stated deflection limit and bridging requirements. 1½-inch type B metal roof deck, 20 gauge. Miscellaneous metals: lintels, embeds, angles, bollards, ladders, roof hatches, pipe supports, and both stairs. Delegated design and shop drawings required for joists, sealed by an engineer.

Division 06 — Wood (06 10 00, 06 17 00). Rough carpentry, blocking, nailers, and in-wall backing. Engineered wood I-joists with the manufacturer's hole chart made part of the submittal. Shop-fabricated wood roof trusses, delegated design, sealed. Sheathing grades and fastening schedule. Fire-retardant treatment where required by the rated assemblies. Casework and countertops.

Division 07 — Thermal and moisture protection. 07 21 00 Thermal insulation: continuous exterior insulation with a stated R-value and a thermal-break clip system. 07 22 00 Roof and deck insulation: polyisocyanurate, tapered to drains, average R-30 continuous over the roof deck. 07 27 00 Air barriers: fluid-applied at CMU, self-adhered sheet at wood framing, continuous across all transitions, with compatibility documentation between adjacent products. 07 41 13 / 07 42 13: standing-seam metal roof and 3-inch insulated metal wall panel. 07 46 46: fiber-cement panel rainscreen with a vented and drained cavity. 07 54 23: mechanically fastened TPO, 60-mil, with a 20-year manufacturer's warranty. 07 92 00: joint sealants by substrate pair, with different classes for masonry-to-masonry, masonry-to-metal, and metal-to-glass joints.

Division 08 — Openings. Hollow metal doors and frames, welded, painted. Flush wood doors, stain-grade. 08 41 13 Aluminum storefront: thermally broken, with a stated maximum U-factor and a stated maximum solar heat gain coefficient. 08 51 13 Aluminum windows: thermally broken, with air-, water-, and structural-performance requirements and a stated U-factor. Door hardware by set, with card access at designated openings. Glazing by type.

Division 09 — Finishes. Gypsum board assemblies, including the rated assemblies at corridors, shafts, and the gym-side walls, framed and boarded full height to the deck at all rated partitions, with head-of-wall joints and penetration firestopping specified. Acoustical panel ceilings. Ceramic tile at locker rooms. Epoxy flooring with integral cove. Resilient flooring and base. Tile carpet. 09 64 66 Wood athletic flooring: maple strip on a floating sleeper system, over a 6-inch concrete slab, with a stated flatness tolerance and a maximum moisture-vapor emission rate to be verified by test before installation. Painting.

Divisions 10–14 — Specialties through conveying. Operable partitions (10 22 26) — motorized, with a stated acoustic rating and a structural support above the partition, with a stated deflection limit, "by others." Metal lockers. Toilet accessories. Signage (allowance). 11 40 00 Foodservice equipment — furnished and installed by the foodservice contractor, with rough-in by the mechanical, plumbing, and electrical trades; grease interceptor specified in this section and in 22 13 19. 11 66 23 Gymnasium equipment — ceiling-suspended backstops, side goals, motorized divider curtain, wall pads, and floor sleeves; the section requires a minimum 25'-0" clear height from finished floor to the lowest structural member for the specified backstop and curtain. Roller shades. 14 24 00 hydraulic passenger elevator, 3,500 lb, two stops.

Divisions 21–28 — Facility services. Wet-pipe sprinkler system throughout, delegated design, with upright heads and guards in the gymnasium and a dry pipe at the unheated canopy. Plumbing: domestic water off the relocated 8-inch main, sanitary and vent, storm, natural gas to the kitchen and water heaters, hot-water recirculation, grease interceptor (22 13 19). HVAC: four packaged rooftop units on curbs, a dedicated kitchen makeup-air unit, a Type I grease hood with a wrapped grease exhaust duct run to a roof-mounted fan, ductwork and insulation, controls, testing and balancing. Electrical: service, switchboard, distribution, branch wiring, lighting with gym fixture guards, kitchen equipment connections, and egress lighting. Communications: data cabling and racks. Electronic safety and security: addressable fire alarm, separately permitted, access control, and cameras.

Divisions 31–33 — Sitework. Site clearing; earth moving with compaction requirements by lift; excavation support and protective systems; asphalt paving and curb and gutter; concrete walks; chain link and ornamental fencing; irrigation, topsoil, and planting. 33 11 00 Water utility distribution piping: the section requires ductile iron pipe with restrained joints for all water main relocation and service work. Sanitary sewerage; storm drainage; detention structure.

K.7 Site and existing conditions

K.7.1 Dimensions, boundaries, and topography

K.7.2 Geotechnical summary (described)

Torrey Geosciences, six borings (B-1 through B-6) to 25 feet, drilled eight months before bid. The report was attached to Addendum 2 for information only and is not a contract document — which is a distinction worth understanding cold before you rely on it, and which Chapter 8 §8.2 and Appendix G both take apart.

Subsurface profile, consistent across all six borings:

Groundwater: encountered at 14 to 17 feet below existing grade at the time of drilling (spring conditions). Seasonal fluctuation is expected and the report says so. No dewatering is anticipated for footings at elevation 96'-4" (approximately 5 feet below existing grade), but perched water above the clay/sand interface after heavy rain is specifically noted as likely.

Bearing: allowable bearing pressure 3,000 psf on the native dense sand and gravel of Stratum 2, or on compacted structural fill placed on Stratum 2.

Recommendations, as summarized in the report:

1. Strip topsoil and all organics from the building pad and the pavement areas.
2. Undercut Stratum 1 lean clay wherever it is encountered at or above footing bearing elevation and replace with compacted granular structural fill.
3. Place structural fill in 8-inch loose lifts compacted to 95% of maximum dry density (standard Proctor), with lift-by-lift density testing.
4. Proof-roll the building pad and all pavement subgrade under the observation of the geotechnical engineer.
5. Pavement sections: 3 inches asphalt over 8 inches aggregate base for parking stalls; 4 inches over 10 inches for drive lanes, the fire lane, and the refuse pad.
6. Infiltration is not recommended; stormwater is detained in a surface basin at the southwest corner.
7. Note in the report: "City records indicate a maintenance structure formerly occupied the southeast portion of the site. Utilities serving that structure were reportedly abandoned in place; locations were not determined by this investigation."

That last line is where a differing-site-conditions argument will eventually start. Read it before you price the earthwork, and read Chapter 6 §6.4 before you decide who owns it.

K.7.3 The 8-inch water main relocation

An existing 8-inch ductile iron water main crosses the site east–west, roughly 60 feet north of the Willow Street right-of-way line, at a depth of approximately 5 feet. It serves properties east of the site and the fire service to Danforth Elementary School is fed from it.

The relocation, shown on C-3.1:

This is not a task; it is a small project with its own design, its own permit, its own utility coordination, its own shutdown, and its own risk to somebody else's fire protection. 72 hours' written notice to every affected customer, a written fire-flow confirmation from Rivermont Municipal Water and the Fire Marshal for the duration of the outage, and a weekend or night window are all requirements of the work, not preferences. See Chapter 17 §17.3.

K.7.4 Utilities at the property line

K.7.5 Environmental and permitting constraints

K.8 Quantities

Read the "Source" column before you use any number.

• GIVEN — a controlling quantity for this project. Use it. If your takeoff disagrees, your takeoff is what changes.
• TAKE OFF — you compute it from §K.5. The package gives you the geometry; you supply the method, the waste factor, and the assumption.

All GIVEN quantities are neat — no waste factor applied. Apply your own from Appendix C §C.6 and show it on every line, which is the actual assignment in Chapter 12.

K.8.1 Sitework and earthwork

K.8.2 Concrete

K.8.3 Masonry

K.8.4 Structure

K.8.5 Envelope

K.8.6 Interiors

K.8.7 MEP

K.8.8 Labor

K.9 Contract terms

Every term below is illustrative and drafted for this exercise. Contract terms, statutory notice periods, retention limits, prompt-payment requirements, lien rights, prevailing-wage thresholds, and dispute procedures vary by jurisdiction, differ between public and private work, and change over time. Read your own contract; call your own attorney. Nothing here is legal advice.

The clauses that will actually cost you money on this job

1. "More stringent governs" within a rank (§K.6.1). Every unresolved ambiguity is priced at its worse reading, or you eat it. This clause is why the ten discrepancies in §K.12 are worth finding before bid, not after.
2. The 7-day notice period. Short, and it runs from discovery, which is a fact somebody will later try to establish from your own daily reports. See Chapter 33.
3. Non-compensable weather beyond 14 days. You get time. You do not get the $1,600/CD.
4. The $50,000 Council threshold. A change that needs a Council vote does not move at the speed of your schedule. Two Council meetings a month, and an agenda deadline eight days before each one.
5. Float as a shared project resource. Read it twice. It means the owner may consume your float without compensating you — and it means you may consume it too. Both parties race for it, and the schedule update is the scoreboard.

K.10 Market and cost data for this exercise

⚠️ Teaching data. Not a price book.

Every wage, burden factor, rental rate, and material price below is illustrative and exists for one reason: so that everyone working this project arrives at comparable arithmetic. These are not survey figures, they are not adjusted to your market, and they do not know your crews, your class codes, your ready-mix plant, or what steel did last quarter. For installed unit costs, productivity rates, crew compositions, and waste factors, use Appendix C — this section supplies only the inputs that are specific to Willow Street.

Real numbers come from your own historical cost data first, current quotes second, and published data adjusted for time, location, and size third.

K.10.1 Labor — prevailing wage, Rivermont jurisdiction

Willow Street is a prevailing-wage job. These are higher than the open-shop rates used for Northgate in Chapter 12, and that is not an error — it is the point. See Appendix A §A.6.2 for the full reconciliation.

Why the factor is highest at the bottom and at the top. Several burden components are flat dollars per person, so they weigh more against a small wage — that is the apprentice and the laborer. And workers' compensation is priced by class code against observed injury frequency and severity — that is the ironworker at 1.820 and the roofer at 1.900. Neither number is a judgment about the person. See Appendix C §C.7.2.

Crew composite rates (use these to price a change order, not an individual rate):

Effective rate. A burdened rate is the cost of an hour on the clock. Kestrel's convention: unit rates come from charged hours, so the estimate uses the burdened rate above. The effective rate — burdened ÷ productive-hour fraction, roughly 1.165× — is used only when a crew must be pulled off other productive work to perform added scope. Do not apply both. That mistake inflates a change order by about 16% and it is the single most common double-count in this business (Chapter 20 §20.5).

Overtime. The premium half of an overtime hour carries payroll taxes and workers' compensation but generally not the fringe package, so an overtime hour on this job costs roughly 1.38× straight time, not 1.5×. Use your accountant's convention, consistently, and make sure it is not the naive one.

K.10.2 Equipment — rental rates, bare (no operator, no fuel)

Fuel, service, and small tools run roughly 18% to 25% of bare rental on earthmoving equipment and less on lifts. Carry it as a line, not as a shrug.

Willow Street is two storeys with a 50-ft gym span, which means you are almost certainly on a hydraulic truck crane on scheduled pick days plus a telehandler, not a standing tower crane. That makes crane days scarce and therefore precious: on a crane day, every pick for every trade belongs on one sheet, and your crane window is constrained by the school. See Chapter 21 §21.5.

K.10.3 Materials — delivered, before sales tax

K.10.4 Rates, factors, and escalation

One quantity-to-time conversion you will use constantly: a work day on this job is worth roughly 1.4 calendar days, and a calendar day is worth $2,800. So a single work day of schedule is about $3,920 of exposure. Write that on the inside cover of your notebook.

K.11 The forty-two deliverables

One per chapter. Each one references the previous and previews the next. By Chapter 42 you hold a complete project record — a genuine portfolio, not a transcript.

The dependency chain — why the order is not arbitrary

Seven of these deliverables form a single spine. If one of them is wrong, everything downstream of it is wrong, and you will not find out until much later.

   Ch 12  TAKEOFF ────────────────► quantities, with sources and waste factors
             |
             v
   Ch 13  ESTIMATE ────────────────► quantities × unit costs + GC + markup = $6,800,000
             |          |
             |          +──────────► general conditions ÷ 425 CD = $1,600/CD
             v
   Ch 14  CPM SCHEDULE ────────────► the same quantities ÷ production rates = durations
             |                       (and this is what proves the 425 CD is real)
             v
   Ch 32  SCHEDULE OF VALUES ──────► the estimate, re-cut into billable lines that
             |                       sum to the contract sum
             v
   Ch 32  PAY APPLICATION #6 ──────► % complete on each SOV line, less 5% retention
             |
             v
   Ch 30  EARNED VALUE ────────────► PV from the cost-loaded schedule, EV from measured
             |                       quantities, AC from the cost report
             v
   Ch 33  DELAY ANALYSIS ──────────► the baseline from Ch 14, the as-built from Ch 29,
                                     the damages at $1,600/CD from Ch 13

Read that chain bottom to top and you have the reason estimators and schedulers should sit near each other. Your delay claim in Chapter 33 is only as good as the takeoff you did in Chapter 12 — because entitlement rests on a baseline, the baseline rests on durations, the durations rest on quantities, and the quantities rest on whether you wrote down where each one came from.

The other thirty-five deliverables are not filler. They are the parallel systems — safety, quality, procurement, documentation, coordination — that determine whether the seven above describe the job or merely describe a plan the job ignored.

K.12 Instructor and self-study answer section

🛑 STOP

Do not read this section until you have produced the deliverable it answers. The Chapter 7 discrepancy hunt in particular is worth nothing if you read the answers first — the skill being trained is the searching, not the knowing.

K.12.1 The ten planted discrepancies

Ten conflicts are deliberately built into §K.5 and §K.6. Chapter 7 asks you to find ten, and there are exactly ten. Two are seams — scope that falls between trades or between the building and the site — as Chapter 7 §7.10 Pass 6 requires.

Dollar figures are illustrative exposures at the time of logging, priced two ways where the timing changes the answer.

The total takes the cheaper resolution on #1 (change the equipment, not the structure) and the gym-only thickness on #2, and it excludes the contingent moisture mitigation. Choose differently and defend it — that argument is the exercise.

What that table actually is. It is roughly four days of careful reading, and it moved $168,650 of unallocated risk out of the dark and into a document with an owner and a date. Not all of it is yours — several items are correctly the City's, and one or two were always going to be the contractor's. That is not the point. The point is that all ten have a number and an owner by Friday.

Three of them belong on your Chapter 6 risk register rather than being closed by an RFI, because their answers change an assembly rather than settle a fact: #2 (a moisture test that may fail), #5 (a continuity failure with no detail yet), and #10 (a delegated design with a deflection criterion nobody has checked).

K.12.2 Expected order of magnitude — the conceptual estimate and the bid

Chapter 11 — the conceptual estimate. A defensible UniFormat conceptual estimate for this building lands at roughly $7,400,000, or about $309/SF — which is $600,000 over the City's $6,800,000 budget. That gap is the assignment, not a mistake in your arithmetic. It is the reason the value-engineering log exists, and it is what actually happens on municipal projects with a fixed bond amount and a program written before anyone priced it.

Sanity ranges to check yourself against:

If your conceptual number is below $270/SF you have almost certainly missed the gymnasium's structure, the commercial kitchen, or the locker-room plumbing density. If it is above $360/SF you have priced a healthcare building.

Chapter 13 — the bid. The canonical reconciliation, which Chapter 13 publishes and this package does not alter:

One defensible shape for the $5,430,000 cost of work, offered as an order of magnitude and nothing more. Your own division split will differ. Chapter 13's instruction stands: if any line differs by more than about 8%, go find out why — the investigation is worth more than the agreement.

Chapter 14 — the schedule. 425 calendar days converts to 281 available work days. A schedule that fits inside 425 CD with 20 to 35 calendar days of project float is a good answer; a schedule that fits with 90 days of float has durations that are too optimistic and should be pushed on. A schedule that does not fit is also a good answer if it is accompanied by three priced options — resequence, accelerate, or request time — and a recommendation. The milestone shape that reconciles with the schedule-control exercise in Chapter 29:

K.12.3 Grading notes for the highest-value deliverables

K.12.4 Substituting a real local project

Do it if you can. Replacing Willow Street with a real, local, currently-bidding public project is a genuine improvement, and for a working professional it is obviously better than a fictional one. Public agencies post complete bid sets — drawings, project manual, addenda, bid results — free, current, and local. A school district, a county, a transit agency, a state university system, or a municipal public-works department near you almost certainly has one open right now.

What you gain: real drawings with real coordination errors, a real order-of-precedence clause, real local prevailing-wage determinations, real permit authorities you can telephone, and — if you time it right — real bid results to compare your estimate against, which is the single most valuable feedback loop in this book.

What you must supply yourself, because a real bid set will not hand it to you:

Two cautions. Scale matters: a $180 million project has a takeoff no individual can complete in a week, and a $600,000 project will not exercise half the deliverables. Aim between $3 million and $20 million. And keep the deliverable list in §K.11 exactly as it is — the chain in §K.11 is what makes the notebook a portfolio instead of a folder.

If you substitute, say so on the cover of your notebook, and carry the four numbers that replace Willow Street's on the first page: contract value, contract time, extended general conditions per day, and liquidated damages per day. Those four numbers are the project, in the same way that $6,800,000 / 425 CD / $1,600 / $1,200 are this one.

Related: Chapter 1 · Chapter 7 · Chapter 12 · Chapter 13 · Chapter 14 · Chapter 17 · Chapter 18 · Appendix A · Appendix B · Appendix C · Appendix D · Appendix G