fee distribution for typical building projects
 

fee distribution for typical building projects
greetings forumer's,
i wanted to get some feedback on what is 'fair and reasonable' regarding distribution of a fee for a prime consultant and sub-consultants for a typical building project.
some background information ...
we use a publication from the alberta association of architects/ association of professional engineers, geoligists and geophysicists of alberta entiltled:
'recommended conditions of engagement and schedule of professional fees for building projects'
this publication assigns a category to a particular building type and a range of fee precentages for a range of total project costs.
similarly, we also look at rs means building construction cost data, reference section, reference number r011 overhead and miscellaneous data, r01107-010 architectural fees and r01107-030 engineering fees ( structural engineering fees) as a guideline.
my question is:
how does the total consultant fee get distributed amongst sub-consultants? example:
using the aia method:
multi purpose, multi user building complex located in northern alberta. construction budget is $2,300,000. no unusual project variables.
building is category 5, community multi use centre. percentage fee calculation:
on the first $1,200,000 ---> 10.43% or $125,160
on the next $1,100,000 ---> 10.15% or $111,650
total basic fee: $236,810
how is this distributed amongst prime consultant, and sub-consultants? i am interested in the structural proportions mostly.
one of the architects whom i work with assigns a value of 8% of fee for structural subconsultant. therefore, the structural subconsult fee would be 0.08*$236,810 = $18,950 ( round figures)
when i check the rs means reference ( r01107-010) ... this seems quite low. for the same project as noted above, the rs means calculation would run as follows:
building type: apartments/banks/schools/libraries/offices/ municipal buildings: use 7.5% of total project cost( interpolated) yields : $172,500.
this is not too far off the estimate established from aia/apegga.
then, using r01107-030 engineering fees ( structural engineering fees) , the type of construction would fall into hotels/apartments/offices/dorms/hospitals/public buildings/food stores (in my opinion) from which the table indicates 1.70% for a project size ranging from $1,000,000 to $5,000,000. this table notes these percentages are included in architectural fees.
using this method, i would calculate structural engineering fees as :
0.017*$2,300,000 = $39,100
in summary, using aia/apegga method, the architect calculates the value of structural engineering work as $18,950 while working thru the rs means method yields the structural engineering fee to be $39,100.
i realize both methods rely upon indices of one form or another. can anyone else provide me with their experience in this matter?
i'm in an a/e firm and we use the means reference above as well as info from zweig-white.
structural fee is usually in the 15% to 22% of the total a/e fee with an average of 17% of the total (this would be the total fee encompassing arch / struct / mech / elec / civil and not including contract/construction administration or geotechnical)
an engineer who was a mainstay for years in our city provided services to various architects and his formula was to charge 0.75% of the total construction cost of the project for his structural fee.
i believe that means uses 1% to 2.5%.
thanks for your reply jae.
regards,
philitup